


A Wolf's Burden

by liliaeth



Series: An Alpha never walks alone [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Scott McCall, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Angst, College Student Scott McCall, Depression, Gen, Hurt Scott, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scott As Primary, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Scott McCall is a Good Alpha, Scott McCall is a Good Friend, Scott McCall-centric, the world finds out about werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-25 00:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14366847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liliaeth/pseuds/liliaeth
Summary: After the War with Monroe came to a stand still, Scott tries to go back to school and lead a normal life. Fate unfortunately doesn't make things that easy, as the secret of the supernatural is revealed worldwide





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to Nyxelestia for betaing

_Scott stared up at the sky as he listened to Stiles’ heartbeat. At the sound of his friend’s voice. “Everything is going to be just fine. Chris will get here any minute. We’ll get you taken care of. Please Scott, just stay with me. Stay with me.” Scott’s eyes were still unfocused, as he lay down on the rough wooden remnants of the broken Nemeton, his legs pulled up. It was hard to keep his eyes open, hard not to give in and let himself fade. Stiles held his hand, coming close to crushing it._

_Scott shivered as his blood soaked into the Nemeton. He was cold, his body pushing all its energy into healing his wound. He could feel something growling inside of him, a leash fraying. Stiles took off his own coat and laid it out over him. Scott wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to. But Stiles wasn’t listening. He was still talking, “They’d better be grateful”, he said, “we saved the world”._

_Scott’s hand moved to his chest, the wound was already closing, he could feel it knitting together, one bloodvessel at a time. The healing hurt almost worse than the original pain itself._

_“What were they like?” Stiles asked._

_“They were beautiful.” Scott whispered, remembering the awe he’d felt in their presence._

_A wolf howled. He wasn’t sure if it was out in the woods or inside his head. And for a moment he didn’t care. All he could do was mourn for what had been lost._

 

 

 

   
1.

 

Scott stretched his neck, feeling phantom aches as his muscles shivered under the weight of the full moon. He hated going to parties. They were too crowded, too noisy to be comfortable, let alone fun. Far too many sweaty bodies, people’s breaths stinking of booze. They reminded him of skulking through nightclubs, knowing he had a hunter on his tail as he led them away from another wolf. Getting the hunters to an alleyway, so he could knock them out. 

“McCall? He’s just a tightwad. The guy wouldn’t know what fun was, if it slapped him in the face and called him baby.” Scott wasn’t even sure who the guy who said it was. Just one in a long line of nameless faces.

Scott had heard comments like that a few times over the past month. He couldn’t deny it was true. He shivered as he left the wall and headed up to the punch. Every step to the middle of the floor made him hesitate with no one around to watch his back. The building they were in was old, the floors covered with rugs, wind pushing at the window. 

It was getting hard to breathe and he opened a window. Staring outside, up at the sky, and the moon behind it. It had been a mistake to accept the invitation. But his Mom had called that morning, asking if he was having fun. Telling her he was going to a party that night had been a spur of the moment decision to keep her from worrying. It was a mistake he’d regretted the moment he’d arrived. 

The music was loud, the beat punching on his ears, people shouting at one another, trying to be heard. He stared at his hands, desperate to make sure they weren’t shifting. 

“Scott?” he turned around, staring at the kid standing behind him. Chad. Your typical frat boy wannabe, lived about two doors away from Scott in the dorm. “Are you alright?” Scott pushed in his emotions, taking a deep breath. 

“I’m fine, I just… I just need some air.” Chad was staring at him, probably wondering if Scott was on something. Scott forced himself to smile at the kid. He couldn’t possibly understand. “I’m fine, thanks. I think I had a bit too much punch.”

“But there isn’t even any booze in the punch?” He heard Chad say as he was leaving. 

Scott ignored him, staring out the door as he grabbed his bike. Taking another breath, his heart reaching out for his pack, to let them steady his pulse, anchor him in the here and now. But they weren’t there, were they? They were miles and miles away, spread out across the country. 

He could go back to the dorm, find a couch to sleep on somewhere. He still couldn’t get a full night’s rest, unable to sleep in soft clean cheats, almost missing the stench of mold and other little leftovers of previous occupants that had come to mean brief comfort and safety during his life on the road. 

He hadn’t tried out the ones on the fourth floor lounge yet. But as he stared up at the dorm, the glare of the moon made him want to look up and roar, almost as if he heard another wolf’s howl in the air. It couldn’t be real. 

“Kid?” Scott stared at the men coming up at him. Campus police. He took off his helmet, shivering in the thin air, the scent of squirrels in the air. He could almost hear them teasing him: “come hunt me”, their squeaks whispered to his wolf. “’I’m here, no I’m here, fooled you, I’m here now.” It confused him, annoyed him, made him lick his lips in a moment of eagerness to feel their blood on his teeth.

“I’m fine.” He repeated. “Just need some air.”

“Best be careful on the road, kid.” Scott stared at the man’s name tag. W. Layton.

The road better take care with him.

His heart raged. He ignored it.

Instead, he put his helmet back on, and got on the road. For all the claims of UC Davis being located in the middle of nowhere, and surrounded by green, it had taken Scott weeks before he’d found a stretch of woods large enough for him to have a decent run. Somewhere that he could run and keep going without accidentally bumping into some hikers, or some poor idiot on a late night jog. He’d had to travel half an hour, just to find the one he did.

It was at times like these that he missed the Preserve back home, let alone some of the vast woods he’d travelled through in the past year. 

Scott drove his bike to the edge of the Yolo bypass, parking it and locking it, instead of just throwing it down on the asphalt as his instincts told him to do, to just get rid of it. Get rid of all of it, of humanity and its stench. The moon beat an endless staccato, telling him to run, to hunt to kill, until he’d given in to his body’s demand for a run just to hold back the urge to maim and destroy. His boots caked with dirt, his socks soaked from running in wet soil.

He’d started off on two feet, running in between what few trees there were, moving onto all fours, avoiding the path, the scent of any humans in the area. Watching the world through shades of red and noticing every squirrel, rabbit, and other little critter in the area as they ran off to hide, away from the predator in their domain.

He followed the river, put his head in the water and took a sip, before he raised his head to the sky as he roared in warning. Startling up as something responded to him. He ignored, it, he had to imagine the response. There was no one out there to respond. Instead he ran again, as if he could get out of his head, and find himself if he just ran long enough, far enough.

Until finally he’d dropped down, and lay on the ground, staring up at the moon as it faded into the sky.

By the time he woke back up, it was morning. The sun rose at the edge of the horizon. He shivered in his wet clothes and rushed across the grounds. Almost running into the same campus officer he’d ran into the night before. The man was yawning and clearly heading back to his bed. Scott apologized and continued on. Using his ID card to get into the building, as he dripped water all over the floor.

“Scott?” His heart skipped a beat at the sound of his name. A dark face looked up at him from between the sheets of the bed on the other side of the room. 

“Go back to sleep, Steve.” 

His roommate yawned and turned over, his eyes still half closed. “So who was the lucky girl this night?” Scott startled up. “Or guy, not judging.”

Steve thought he was sleeping around campus. Who could blame the kid? It’s not like Scott ever slept in his own bed for more than two nights in a row. He wished it was that easy though.

“Go back to sleep. Your first class isn’t for another four hours.”

Steve didn’t even bother to ask how Scott knew his schedule, he just turned back and closed his eyes. Scott waited for the boy’s heartbeat to settle down and fall back to sleep. 

He sank down against the closet door, shivering in the still drenched shirt, feeling a puddle forming underneath him. He wanted to just stay put and fall asleep, but he couldn’t, not with the sound of human heartbeats surrounding him, not with the moon still itching underneath his skin. 

So he pulled off his shirt and pants, dropped them in the laundry bag his mom had gotten him when he left for school, picked up one of those soft fluffy towels she’d pushed in his carryall and moved to the showers. He let the hot water sink on his skin until he sorted himself back into his human skin. Half the things his Mom had bought him, he had no idea what to do with. They smelled too sterile, lacking that vague remnant of hundreds of people who’d used things before him, like the ones he’d found on the road. He trembled as he wiped himself clean, feeling empty.

 

*******

 

He’d never realized just how much of a safety valve the Preserve back home at been or how much freedom it had given the pack. The chance to be themselves, even for precious moments. Classes were always especially hard the day after a full moon. They’d always been; sitting there, quietly, when his body felt wrong, like a chain holding him down. 

He sent his Mom a quick message before class started, and turned off his phone. Professor Kelly hated even the sound of a phone on silent. It was like he could sense it from the front of the room, and would find you and stare at you, till guilt made you want to run for your life. It didn’t matter to him just how important a call might be. 

The class slowly filled up, and he was barely able to find a place to put his bag and laptop. As the teacher started on about carbon molecules, Scott tried to let himself sink into the subject. It was obvious that Kelly was fascinated by his subject and probably knew more about the difference between organic and synthetic molecules than anyone else Scott had ever met. It was also pretty clear to Scott that no matter how many AP classes he’d taken in high school, that he was going to have to put in some more time in lab, if he wanted to keep up with it. 

He loved this class. Normally the two hours it took were over before he knew it,. But not today, today he sat there, the teacher’s words flowing over him, and he was barely able to keep up with his notes. It wasn’t that it was boring, it was that part of him simply refused to let it sink in, as if carbon, oxygen and nitrogen molecules were battling it out in his brain and he almost missed the point where the teacher cut down his presentation and gave them leave to get out of his classroom.

He was itching as he left the building, the stale air coming out of the air vents felt heavy on his skin. He stretched his fingers, holding in his claws. Forcing himself to smile back at people as they called out to him. Being dour and broody got you noticed.

He felt a lot better as he finally managed to get outside to the quad. He put down his bag and sat down on the grass, stretching his legs on the dirt, feeling the earth underneath him. It was tamed, like he was. The scents too sterile to feel right.

There were just too many people, not just around him, but in the buildings surrounding him. His senses still too much on point. He was trying to block them out when he heard the first whispers. He tried to block them out, ignore them as he did everything else that kept bothering him. 

He was twenty going on forty and both far too young and old at the same time. He flinched against the harshness of the sunlight, almost scared of looking back at his shadow and what it might betray.

Someone said the word ‘werewolf’. Probably some new video game, or book, he didn’t really keep track of things like that, hadn’t in years. Not even before horror became a part of his daily life. Stiles used to love movies like that, not just the classics, but the bad ones as well. In fact, if Stiles were to be believed, the corny ones were the best ones.

They stopped saying that around the time that Peter attacked them at school, when they saw the janitor, or what was left of him. Gore stopped being funny after that.

“Still can’t believe it.”

He clicked his earphones into his laptop, and turned on his recording of the professor’s lecture. Anything to wash out the background noise as he forced himself to focus on his books. Scents wafted his way, food, books, too much Axe in the air for it to be comfortable for anyone. He released a breath, anything that could work to relax his nerves.

He flinched as someone dropped a bunch of books, startled up at the sound of someone’s engine starting up

Hard not to wait for the next attack, the next ambush, the next massacre that would happen if he came in even a second late. He’d been so tired of leading a war, tired of the endless back and forth between hunters and prey, switching roles in every attack. When they’d finally defeated Monroe, Scott had been strung out, unsure if he was even human anymore, more wolf than man. 

“Did you see it?” 

Kids around him were busy with their phones, huddling together in small circles. Scott didn’t join them. He felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, back to being that asthmatic loner who’d been nothing but Stiles’ friend. And Stiles wasn’t here with him.

But Mom had wanted him to be a kid. So he’d let Chris handle the paperwork. Get him into school, arrange his dorm; all Scott had dared ask for not to get the dorm nearest to the cow pastures. Chris had rolled his eyes at that, and told him he wouldn’t put a human through that, let alone a werewolf. 

Scott collected his books from the grass, and heard someone say, “How did they get those effects?”

An unease settled in his back.

Something was off, the entire campus was buzzing. 

 

_He’d leant into Stiles on the flight to Germany. Stiles could have complained, but he didn’t. He pulled up his arm rest instead, and let Scott put his head on his shoulder, their knees touching. Scott had allowed himself to think that Stiles might have missed him as much as Scott had missed Stiles. Sometimes he even believed it. It was easier to sleep like this, to hear his brother’s heartbeat right next to his where it belonged._

_Stiles didn’t let it stop him from talking, too excited to be quiet. That helped even more. Stiles had done the research, so had Scott, but he knew it helped Stiles to go through it, and let them both know what he’d found out. Scott shivered as Stiles moved. But they never broke touch. Not even as he dozed off._

 

“How did they get those effects?” The crowd was closing down on him, and for a moment he wanted to jump into a run, as if a threat was happening and he was only half aware of it. He’d been jumpy since he’d arrived. The place was too … normal, to quiet, even in its noisiness. 

 

“Was that real?” 

He took off his headphones, pulled them out of his laptop and pushed them into his pocket, feeling them sink down.

“It can’t be. Has to be some kind of prank.”

He checked his phone. If it was some kind of viral video, Stiles probably would have sent it to him by now.

Right now there were about fifty messages waiting for him. Which, even from Stiles, was a bit excessive.

The last one was marked: ”Scott pick up your damn phone” He did, fumbling with the thing, almost dropping it as he pressed Stiles number, his throat choking up on him..

 

_Stiles had drank too much. He’d had three pints of beer, maybe four, and Scott knew he should have cut him off after the second. European beer was nothing like the much tamer American version. But they’d been moving from club to club. Pretending to be something they weren’t, just kids out for the night. This one wasn’t the one they’d been after either. Scott stared at the dance floor as Stiles made a fool of himself. The people around him didn’t seem to care. Scott touched his own glass. Someone sent him another, he nodded in appreciation._

_Ten minutes later he had an invite to a special club._

_Twenty minutes later they were out of the club, Stiles leaning into him to keep standing. “Please tell me you’ve got your phone on you.” He mumbled._

_“For what?”_

_“So we can tell Derek his leads suck.”_

_“We can’t do that.”_

_“Yes we can, this is like the fourth club in a week, and nada, bupkiss. No hunters, no nothing. And I…” Stiles stopped for a moment, Scott had to hold him up. “I can’t stay for more than a month, Scottie. What’ll happen when I leave, and you still haven’t found anything?”_

_“Then we’ll keep looking. Or Ethan and Jackson’ll take over.”_

_“Oh God, not those two. They’d be so busy sucking face, a bunch of hunters could surround them and they wouldn’t notice till the bullets started flying.”_

_“Ethan wouldn’t let that happen.”_

_“Yeah right, all distracted by Jackson’s ass? Have you seen that ass?”_

_“Stiles, you’re drunk.”_

_“Am not, you’re drunk, drunkity drunk. Stupid werewolf can’t get drunk, can ya.”_

_“You’ve got to go back to school, Stiles.”_

_“Why? I can help here.”_

_“People are already looking suspicious whenever my Dad tries to get information for us. If you got into the bureau, you could get the kind of clearance we need. Not just to help protect the pack, but to help all wolves. You could be our ace in the hole.”_

_“I can fight.”_

_“Well duh. Bro, we have fighters. What we need is brains, your brains, and what you could do over at Quantico. That’s something that no one else in the Pack can do.”_

_“You’re my brother.”_

_Scott had rolled his eyes at Stiles’ words._

_“Is that even in question? I love you, I need you. And I need you to be in Quantico. I need you to study up and help us get the kind of information we can’t get through hacking, or talking to informants. I need you to be the one who figures it out. Can you do that for me?”_

_Stiles stared at him, as if trying to find the lie. And it wasn’t there. Every word of it had been true. It just wasn’t the entire truth. But if Scott told Stiles that he was the one person Scott couldn’t afford to lose, then Stiles would refuse. He’d put himself in danger a thousand times over, thinking that was the only way he could be useful, and Scott couldn’t handle that, not with Stiles. And if Stiles ever found out, well, it was a he lie he’d be able to live with. After all, shouldn’t some part of Stiles already know?_

 

“Stiles, what’s going on?” He could hear his friend’s heartbeat racing through the phone. Was Stiles about to get a panic attack, was there anything he could do over the phone? He tried to ignore just how constricted his own chest felt.

“Did you see the videos?” 

Scott winced.

“What videos?”

He went back to the previous messages and moved up to the first one. Starting it up. It was two guys getting in an argument on street, just words, but with both sides getting more and more agitated, and then one of the two wolfed out. People started screaming, the guy filming kept saying “oh my God” over and over again.

And Scott stared at the image, at the man who tore into the downed man on the ground, slashing into him, before he turned around at the crowd with glowing blue eyes and roared.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

2.

 

“What’s going on?” he asked as he quickly checked the next five messages. Various locations, people dancing, a fading moon in the background, with someone wolfing out. A young teenager flashing golden eyes. A woman with claws…

“Stiles.”

“It’s been happening all over the world. Hundreds, even thousands of people, just… suddenly wolfing out. And from the way they’re freaking out about it...”

“It’s their first time.” Scott froze, horrified at the very idea.

“Yes.” Stiles sounded bad. He hadn’t sounded so scared since those dark days of the Nogitsune. Scott wished he could hold his hand, and tell him he’d solve it, get rid of the problem. But the problem wasn’t Stiles’. It was all of theirs.

Scott sat down. His heart racing in his chest. He forced it down, made himself breathe. This couldn’t happen. His hands, he quickly curled them in a fist before anyone could see the claws. The world froze around him, and he couldn’t stop himself from going on full alert, fully hearing all the voices around him for the first time that day. School, their friends, the videos. 

“Holy shit, monsters are real!”

The words felt like a stab through the heart

“It can’t be. It has to be some kind of prank.” Please, God please, let it be a prank.

Police sirens somewhere off campus.

The stench of fear, uncertainty.

Scott tried to ignore it all as he packed up his books, put his laptop in his bag, and started his way towards his dorm. Towards escape, he had to get away. He needed to get out of sight, needed somewhere private, where he could collapse in peace. He wasn’t even sure if his dorm room would be enough.

That’s when he heard her, the voice of a girl saying over and over again: "This can’t be happening. This can’t be real.” Her words switching between English and Japanese. 

He wasn’t even surprised when the screaming followed a second later. Instead he slipped his phone in his pocket, and ran up against the crowd, heading towards the cause of the screams.

A girl, she looked small and fragile, even with fangs and claws out. She smelled desperate, begging people leave her be, growling at anyone that came close as she seemed to feel cornered into the building behind her. She was so scared, lost, her golden eyes filled with terror and tears. Scott knew she was getting close to the point where her fear would lead her into a rage, making her attack out of sheer desire to survive.

Scott wanted to tell people to run before something worse happened, before she fully lost control. His wolf wanted to tear them to pieces for crowding her. There was just no time, people were already stampeding, so desperate to get away from her that they were getting in their own way.

One guy got too close and she jumped at him. Scott did the only thing he could do, still too far away from her to physically push her back. 

He roared, pushing every ounce of Alpha behind his voice.

For a moment, it was as if the world stood still. Just him, and the other wolf, facing off.

Her golden eyes met his red ones. Her wolf staring at him in defiance, daring to refuse, he wasn’t her Alpha. And then his roar continued, and her wolf back off, backed away until it was hidden, trembling in fear. 

She pulled back, barely having scratched the boy. 

Scott walked up to her, his eyes still glowing red, and he knew his face was fully wolfed out. His skin itched, stretched out, but he ignored it, settling down beside her, putting himself at her level on the stones.

“It’s alright, you’re all right. Everything will be fine.” She pulled in on herself, possibly as scared of him, as she was of herself. Her face once again looked human, she was so young. He forced his face to shift back to normal, his eyes still red. 

And he told her the lie, the golden lie. The one everyone wanted to hear.

“It’s ok, you didn’t hurt anyone. You’re safe. Everyone is safe.” He wanted to hug her, but he knew that as a stranger he’d just scare her more if he did so. “My name’s Scott, what’s yours?” He offered her his hand, let her reach for it herself, she took it, desperate for some kind of connection. He had to fight the urge to form a pack bond, her despair calling out to the wolf inside of him. But he wouldn’t force that on her.

“Laurie.” The name came out mumbled, barely understandable. She looked like she was fifteen, he figured she was older than that.

“Hi, Laurie. I’m here to help.” He tried to ignore the crowd around them, circling them like a pack of vultures waiting for the aftermath, the terrified heartbeats of the people around him, all the scents invading his head like a hundred different messages all pointing the same direction. He tried to blank it all out, the terror ringing through in their whispers, the sound of police sirens reaching closer. It seemed that the campus cops had called in outside help. 

“I almost… I wanted.” 

“I know, Laurie,” he realized all too well just how close she’d gotten. “Just calm down. Breathe. Think of a phrase that means something to you. Something that reminds you of whom you are. Ignore any voice, except for mine, focus on me, smell my scent, hear my voice, my heartbeat, focus on me, just me.” Her heart was thumping in her chest, he knew he needed to calm her down.

“I can’t…. I can’t think…” 

“It’s alright. There’s this phrase one of my betas liked to use when he was first learning control. ‘Three things cannot long stay hidden, the sun, the moon, the truth.’ Repeat those words. What three things cannot long stay hidden?”

“The sun, the moon, the truth.”

“That’s right. Now repeat those words, and every time you say them, imagine your heart beat calming down, breathe in, breathe out, every time you say them. Gently. What three things cannot long stay hidden?”

“The sun, the moon, the truth.”

He kept repeating the question, letting her use the words to calm down. Several times her eyes flashed golden, but he kept up the same mantra, remaining a steady anchor in the storm of emotions surrounding them. 

By the time the cops got there, she was as calm as she was going to get. He noticed that people were filming them. Phones up in their hands, staring at him in horror, yet seemingly unable to make a run for it with the rest of the crowd. It was too late to stop them from spreading his face. He let his eyes go back to normal, didn’t even fight when the police officers took both him and the girl into custody.

The cops barely dared to handle him. He pulled in his claws, hadn’t even realized they were out. The cop was still staring at him, his pupils wide open, his hands shaking. Scott could smell the fear in his sweat. The poor guy was armed, his hand almost reaching for his gun, and he was terrified of a bunch of college kids.

He was right to be.

Officer W. Layton, the same officer he’d met last night, who’d seemed so in control then.

There was something off about his scent, like something waiting to be born. Scott ignored it and let the campus police officer put cuffs on his wrists. Let him know he was still the same kid the man had met the night before.

But he wasn’t, was he?

 

******

 

_The police in their riot gear seemed confused, more than anything else. Scott stared down at them from the edge of the roof, watching as they dragged off the local hunters. Talking crazy about monsters, how the blood on their hands came from creatures not humans, that the children they’d slaughtered weren’t human. But the cops didn’t care about their words, not after they’d seen the remnants of slaughter inside._

_Isaac and Malia were in an argument, Scott could listen in on them, but he ignored them for a moment, wondering what Stiles was doing on his phone instead._

_“What?”_

_“I just got a call.”_

_“And… Scott, however bad we thought this was. It’s worse.”_

 

Chaos reigned at the police station, almost as bad as on campus. The place was overflowing, unused to dealing with what was being forced on them now. So many people brought in, several of them in various state of shifts.

All sorts of people.

There was a teenage boy, a child really. He couldn’t be more than fourteen, fifteen at most. The boy’s mother had come in with him, and was arguing with the cops that they couldn’t keep her son in chains, “he was just a kid”, she kept saying, but that belayed the fact that he was snarling at anyone that came close.

Next to them was a man in a disheveled business suit, who was frantically tearing at his cuffs.

A woman sat crying in a nightgown, begging God in Spanish what she’d done to deserve this. She’d been covered up in an officer’s coat, her hair a mess, make up smeared all over her face. Her husband was trying to get closer to her to help her, but the cops were holding him back. She seemed almost familiar.

The others all came from various stages and walks of life, all of them united by one common thing: not a single one of them had a clue what was happening to them.

Scott walked along with the police officer, quietly breathing in an out, letting the noise and smells filter out in his head, focusing on what was important, on controlling himself. 

An argument broke out. One man, dressed like a trucker, a baseball cap on his head, was arguing that the cops had nothing to hold him on. He hadn’t done anything, this was all just crap, and they had no right to hold him. Getting angrier with every passing second.

Scott could smell that he was ready to tear apart anyone who got in this way. The cops seemed to have gotten the same message; as they pulled out their guns, far too ready to shoot, demanding the guy to get on the floor, to freeze. It was the worst possible thing to do. 

The anger only set off the other wolves, rising their fear, their hopelessness, with more and more of them about to lose control. 

Scott did what he’d done at school, he let out another roar, his wolf letting itself known, letting itself be heard. Telling him as well as the wolves around him that it wouldn’t be ignored, chains in his heart snapping as the sound came out even louder than the previous one, letting go of yet another barrier in his head. Feeling the locks fall off, lost forever. His face itched, his mouth felt like it didn’t belong.

He could hear glass break, and stood up, breaking the handcuffs they’d put on him, as the new werewolves bent down in submission, and stared up at him in a mix of fear and awe. 

There were so many of them, at least seven around him, shivering on the floor, trying to find a place to hide, some looking as if they wished they could just sink in the floor and disappear. 

 

_They leaned against the wall. Scott grabbed Stiles’ arm, pushing him out of danger. Waiting for the other side to run out of bullets, for that short precious moment that they needed to recharge, before he ran up to them and took them out. Stiles eyes on him all the way. Seeing Isaac stand there on the other side, his blue glowing eyes signaling they were ready._

_Scott went first. He managed to take out five hunters, before they even realized they were under attack, before the first gun managed to fire back._

 

The cops stood stunned, staring at him, at the wolves surrounding them, and for a moment he feared that they might still shoot. He got in between them and the other wolves, knowing he couldn’t cover all of them. Looking over his back. 

“Stay calm. Do what the officers say. I’m here to help.” He shook his head, desperate to keep it as human as he could manage. His clothes were pulling tight almost as if he’d grown two sizes in a matter of seconds. He relaxed and everything slowly loosened up.

People didn’t seem to be convinced. Scott couldn’t blame them. Nobody even tried to put another pair of cuffs on him. They let him stand by as the others were taken care of. The stench of fear was suffocating. No one in the building seemed to have an idea what to do.

Scott didn’t really know either. But as the only Alpha around, he couldn’t do nothing. By the time he was done with them, all the weres were saying some kind of mantra, one of them was praying. Scott wasn’t going to stop him, anchoring always worked best when you had a personal connection to whatever you were using 

By the time things had calmed down enough, and all that was left was the noise of half a dozen car alarms still going off in the background, he stared up at the police officers. Several of them had their hands on their guns, their eyes wide open, driven more by a sheer sense of terror than anything else. There was glass on the floor all around them.

He shivered. His phone went off, and he closed his eyes, with no idea how to explain this to Stiles. Eventually, he sat down in a chair, letting it all sink in, almost drowning himself in his mind so he could block out his senses and find some peace.

When he opened his eyes, there were eight guns aimed his way. He tried to smile at them, put them at ease.

His smile only made things worse.

He was ordered onto the floor. No one came a step closer, some cocked their guns. He got up from the chair, and moved to his knees, clasping his hands behind his head. The cops just stared at him, until one finally found the courage to come closer and put a new pair of cuffs on his wrists.

He didn’t fight back.

He felt like himself again for the first time since he’d arrived in Davis.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

3.

 

 

_The war council consisted of a group of them. Chris and Derek were talking tactics. Chris considered bringing the rest of the Argents. Derek disagreed. It didn’t matter how often Chris had proved himself, to Derek, the rest of the Argent network would forever be the enemy. And after Kate, who could blame him?_

_Isaac was checking out his gun in the corner. He snorted at his former alpha’s words. Isaac had joined the Argent family years ago, after Chris had taken him with him to France. The Beta still wouldn’t tell Scott what had happened to him after he left. Scott hadn’t dared ask him about his eyes, desperate to ignore the blue gaze looking back at him._

_They weren’t kids anymore._

_“This doesn’t just affect werewolves, Derek. If she succeeds in her plan, who knows what could happen to the rest of the world. There’s a reason Hunters have never even considered trying something like this.”_

_Derek wasn’t listening._

_Stiles was loudly snacking on a bag of chips. “So how long till you tell them to stuff their macho shit?” The words came out mumbled and barely understandable, but by now Scott knew how to translate._

_Scott stared at Stiles who didn’t care one bit as he grabbed another handful of spicey rings to stuff his mouth with._

_“Oh come on, you know you want to.”_

_“They’re not wrong, either of them.” Scott shivered, unsure just what it was that made him feel like someone was walking on his grave._

_“Doesn’t mean they aren’t both acting like idiots about it.”_

_“So what should we do?”_

_“Bring in the Argents, bring in the Callaveras, hell bring in every wolf pack on any continent and stop whatever crap Monroe is pulling.”_

_Scott stared down._

_“Scott, we’ve only got one shot at this. If she succeeds…”_

 

“What the hell were you thinking?!!!”

He wished he had a better answer to that question. But Stiles knew him well enough by now to know that there’s no way he could have stood back and done nothing.

“Scott, this is not the time to come out of the wolf closet. This is the time to stay low, out of sight, and keep people from figuring out what you are, so they don’t end up using you as a fur rug.”

Scott winced, but he knew Stiles was right, it’s just… it had never been in his nature to stand back and do nothing when someone was suffering.

The cops didn’t lock him up in a cell. Mostly cause they didn't have any left. They kept him in cuffs, but his hands were in front of him. As far as holding back an Alpha, they might as well have left him uncuffed. The metal chafed, but not yet as bad as it would once he’d have to break them apart. And then he’d heal, and the ache would join the rest of all those other phantom aches that never quite let him be. 

He could probably give them some hints on how to hold supernatural criminals, but he wasn’t sure if he trusted them enough yet to do so. He remembered what had been done to the cells in the Beacon Hills police station, to make them werewolf proof, lining the walls with mountain ash, and securing the bars so that even a werewolf couldn’t break through them. 

The door here was reinforced, but it wouldn’t take much of his strength to break through it if he had to. He just didn’t see a need to bother.

It wasn’t like they had anything to hold him on in the first place. They’d asked him to stay for questioning, and then left him alone in one of their interrogation rooms for the past hour or so with little more than a bottle of water. Too busy making calls with the CDC, the National guards, and any family members of the people they’d brought in that they could hold responsible for them.

Scott could hear the mish mash of conversations all over the building. From the thirty five year old lunch lady and mother of one, working at his own campus, Maria Lopez, who kept saying that she needed to get to work, or the guy in the truckers hat, Dwight Shailer who kept going on and on about how they had no right to keep him, to the young boy, Clive, and the boy’s mother who kept demanding to see Scott. She seemed to expect him to have all the answers that the police wasn’t able to give her. She wasn’t wrong. 

The cops hadn’t bothered to take his phone. He figured they were too scared of him. None of them wanted to get close enough, whether it was to frisk him, or to move him. 

 

_“So what do Chris’ contacts think we’re doing here, anyway?” Stiles was staring at some of Chris’ guns, lifting one up and carefully assembling it. It felt odd seeing his best friend being so good at handling something so lethal._

_“They think I’m Chris’ spoiled step-son who’s getting to know the business, in the hope I’ll take it over instead of going to vet school.”_

_“Seriously?”_

_“They know Allison was supposed to take over the family business. But now that Allison’s gone…”_

_“They think he’s pinning his hopes on you instead?”_

_Scott shrugged. He still cringed whenever they hung out around other arm dealers and people working for the military. Men and women who saw weapons like guns and anything in Chris’ armory as an everyday tool._

_But whenever he saw a gun, he couldn’t help think of when those guns had been aimed at him. The cold determination in the hunters’ eyes, feeling the hard edges of cement flinching away from the wall as he barely avoided a hit from an assassin. Seeing the dark edges of the barrel of the gun, smelling the gunpowder inside when Chris had aimed a gun in his face. When the man hadn’t even meant to kill him. To feel the hot metal of wolfsbane bullets hitting his flesh, shivering as the heat of it coursed through his veins._

_He could handle those guns in Chris’ hands. Anyone else’s though…_

 

Stiles had sent him a few of the videos someone had taken at UC Davis. There were comments from people from college, a few he knew and a lot he didn’t. Many of those last ones were now talking as if they’d always been wary of him. 

“I always knew he was some kind of monster, he’s just too calm and happy all the time, it’s creepy. I just didn’t think he was a Monster kind of monster.” One of them said. Scott remembered her name from his intro to psych class, but not much more than that.

Others defended him, called him a hero for doing what he did. But it was hard to focus on those when all he could see was an endless repetition of ‘Monster’, ‘freak’ and ‘weirdo’.

Some were asking if he might be some kind of mutant, only a few of the others correctly guessed he had to be a werewolf.

One of the bystanders had recorded his roar, and tested its sound level. It had been louder than he’d intended it to be. He hadn’t fully heard his own voice that night on the Nemeton in Zurich. But if his roar had sounded anything like this when he came back to life on the burned remnants of the Nemeton, then he worried for Stiles’ ears.

People were anxious, desperate for answers, they wanted to know what was going on. They wanted someone to tell them what to do, how to react. Ever since the full moon had faded the night before, more and more people had gone feral with glowing eyes. As if the power of the moon had set things off. The state had put a curfew in place, asking for people to stay inside whenever possible until they themselves had some answers to give.

The CDC thought it was some kind of virus. Scott wondered if they’d ever find a cure. It would shock him if they did.

Google was full of reports on how more and more wolves had to be taken in by their local police forces, some forced, others of their own free will. All of them terrified, of themselves, of what they might do, of how people would react to them now that they were … different.

Far too many had been killed.

Others… others had died, bleeding black blood from ears, mouth and nose, rejecting the change.

Then he heard a scream, a Banshee blanking out the world to hear the sounds only she could hear.

Whomever it was, she wasn’t in his regular hearing range, but he could only imagine how scared she’d have to be.

He sat up, ready to run towards it, it spooked the cop sitting across of him, keeping an eye on him, along with the ones staring at him from behind the double edged mirror. 

“I’m fine,” he whispered to himself. Just fine.

The Banshee screamed again, the other wolves started to respond. He could hear their heartbeats rising. “It’s ok, the humans can’t hear it. I’ll explain later.” He whispered, knowing that the wolves were still focused on him, they’d hear what he said. 

The cop in front of him stared at him. 

“Explain what?”

Scott closed his eyes, and tried to relax himself. All the emotions surrounding him were starting to effect his own responses, making it harder to stay calm. 

The cop grumbled something about ‘humans’, but Scott tried to ignore him, tried to ignore the noise around him. Werewolf hearing wasn’t always the gift it was made out to be.

 

********

 

_Liam hadn’t even been able to meet his eyes, unwilling to let Scott get more than a few feet from him. The boy had flown over from Florida, coming back home to Beacon Hills the second he felt Scott’s roar as Scott rose back to life. Derek had halfheartedly mocked the kid over his concern, but it hadn’t stopped him from paying for Liam’s flight back. Liam hadn’t left Scott’s side for days after that, constantly touching him, rubbing his shoulder, needing to feel his touch._

_“I’m not ready to be alpha yet, Scott.”_

 

Scott had left Alec with the pack in Beacon Hills. Alec and the other refugees that he’d picked up along the way. Little Lizzie who still wouldn’t talk to anyone beside him since she’d seen her Momma cut in two in front of her. Old Man Malcolm, who’d seen his grandchildren die before their time. And so many others who now called Beacon Hills their home. Some had become pack, others hadn’t. But at least they were safe. Even when he wasn’t there.

He was supposed to be their Alpha. It was Derek of all people who’d told him that he needed to find himself again. Go back to school, live his own life, be a kid again. Derek had found him sitting in his room, staring at the wall, about a week after he’d come home from Zurich. He’d been nineteen, and he’d died three times already. He didn’t think he could survive a fourth one.

Scott had tried to be strong for the older wolf, but Derek saw right through him. 

“You can’t keep doing this, Scott. I saw my sister kill herself like this. She was gone, even before Peter got to her. I can’t let you do the same. I know you’re the Alpha, but have you even thought about living for yourself?”

The problem was that it had always been hard to say no to Derek. Derek always seemed to know what he was talking about, even when he was wrong. Especially when he was wrong

Derek said he’d be a better Alpha if he knew how to be Scott McCall first. Scott had no idea what Derek expected of him. The Scott that Derek expected him to find; had died under an Alpha’s bite four years ago. 

 

********

 

The door of the interrogation room opened, and a man in a black suit came in. He looked like Will Smith from that movie with Tommy Lee Jones.

If Stiles had been with him, he’d probably have found it funny. The guy looked so damn serious, and Scott wanted to take him seriously, he did. This was a serious matter, but damn if this wasn’t just one step over the edge of too much on top of everything else. He wondered how the guy would react if he just started laughing hysterically.

It probably wasn’t a good idea either way.

The guy fixed the cuffs of his shirt, and stared at Scott as if he was going to make a quip any second now. So when he opened his mouth, the seriousness in his prim and proper tone was almost a cold shower tearing down the snigger that was threatening to escape.

“Mister McCall. Or should I say Alpha McCall? I never bothered to learn proper manners where your kind is concerned.” The French accent in the hunter’s words made it clear that this wasn’t one of the American Argents, and it was enough to make Scott sit up more firmly. To fall back into a role that had gotten as comfortable as an old pair of jeans that was starting to show its tears. 

Once again, people saw the image of the alpha leading a war, the one that people wanted and expected to see, instead of the clueless kid that he knew himself to be on the inside.

Scott wondered what to do or say. The guy looked all government suit cliché, till Scott noticed a ring on the man’s hand. It carried the Argent emblem, almost exactly the same that had been on the pendant Kate had given Allison.

“Just Scott’s fine.”

Scott wondered what the Argents were up to, and what they wanted now. He wasn’t even sure what they themselves were planning to do with all the new Omegas, he couldn’t even begin to imagine what the hunters’ reaction would be.

“Alpha McCall, I’m sure that by now you have some idea of the disaster that’s been happening around us?”

“The Omegas.”

“Yes. What the hell did you idiots do in Zurich to cause this?”

Zurich, they hadn’t… “That was on Monroe, not us.”

“But you stopped her. Her forces scrambled underground after that.”

 

He remembered the edges of the stump, still wet with the juices of the fallen Nemeton that lay down beside it, freshly cut down before they got there. He could feel his blood sinking down to the roots as the hunters poured gasoline on the trunk to make the wood burn.

_He tried to climb up, to do anything he could to stop it. Desperate to pull out the spear that pierced him to the wood of the trunk. “Please, you have no idea what you’re doing.” He’d begged, desperate to stop it all. Monroe had laughed in his face, still thinking she’d won._

“She was going to destroy the Nemetons, kill every last supernatural on the planet in one go. The emissaries, they warned us that worse disasters would follow if she wasn’t stopped.”

“Disasters?”

“The Yggdrasil.” Scott shivered just thinking about what had awaited him at the other end of the Nemetons. “Turns out the Yggdrasil and the Nidhug were… connected. More so, than we could ever have imagined.”

“And you…”

“We were too late to stop her from cutting down the tree, but we managed to keep her from sacrificing a bunch of kids, in the end that’s all we did.”

“You stopped her, alright.” Scott flinched in remembered pain, unable to keep from showing it. “They say they stabbed you, pierced your heart, and you let her. They say you sacrificed yourself to her, in exchange for those children.”

 

_“It’s you or them, McCall. You love pretending you’re some kind of hero. Are you hero enough for this?”_

_He’d stepped up to her, followed her inside._

_…_

_The pain had been worse than anything he’d ever imagined. But he’d known he had to hang on, to keep it together, save the children. He couldn’t let the darkness take over, Couldn’t… Stiles was screaming, yelling at him to come back, that he couldn’t leave him. But the white room beckoned…_

“I did what I had to do. We all did.”

And all it had done was make things worse.

 

*********

 

By the time they finally released him, Scott was dead on his feet, ready to go back to his dorm and sleep at least until classes started around noon the next day. But he knew he wasn’t alone. He looked at the other werewolves, many of them even worse off, tired, scared of themselves. He went over to every last one that was there and gave them his phone number, offered his help. He called Chris and Derek, checking with them to see if they could get these people lawyers, help, something.   
“Scott, you can’t save everyone.” Derek said. 

“I know, but I have to help the ones that I can.”

Derek had wanted to come over and help him. But Scott needed him in Beacon Hills. The pack needed Derek, since Scott himself couldn’t be there for them. Liam, Alec, Lizzie, they’d all called him for advice. Even Hayden had wanted him to tell her what she was supposed to do now.

He hadn’t had an answer for any of them, but told them to keep people safe. Sometimes, just doing something was the only thing to keep you from giving in to the horror of what was happening.

He called up a few other alphas he knew, checking with them to see if things were as bad for them.

Satomi said she wanted to stay out of it. Her voice sounded broken. The woman had never seemed her age before. But the past few years had aged her more than any of the fifty years before had done.

“I have to keep my pack safe.” She told him. Scott couldn’t blame her. Not after the loss of her last pack, the loss that had left her close to dead for weeks, healing bones and tendons, removing burns and bullet wounds until she finally found the strength to crawl out of the hole she’d been dumped into by her wannabe murderers. She’d been lucky. The hunters had been too inexperienced to realize just how much it took to take out an Alpha, especially one as powerful as Satomi.

It hadn’t helped her pack.

She was still grieving.

Sometimes luck was a curse.

Deucalion said he’d help, but he was in New York, and there were just as many new werewolves in need of guidance there, as there were in California. Scott gave him the number of a few Alphas he’d met in New York the last time he’d been there. He then called them to tell them that Deucalion could be trusted. Too many had heard of the older wolfs reputation.

It was all he could do for any of them.

The worst part is that no one seemed to want to step up and solve the problem. Scott wished there was someone that he could go to, ask for advice, ask for help. Some wise and older person who knew what they were doing, who was willing to take charge. But there wasn’t. 

By the time he was done calling around to as many alphas as he could, it was 2 AM. He’d never realized just how many of them he knew, till he stared at his phone and saw that its battery was almost entirely finished.

He sat hunched down, feeling the hard wood of the bench under tense muscles. He barely managed to hold on to his phone as he checked one last video that Stiles had sent him. A Wendigo had gone on a killing spree in a MacDonalds in Paris. 

The boy had killed several cops before they’d managed to take him down, put him down, killed him. The boy had been sixteen, barely a few months older than Scott himself had been when he was first bitten. The news report mentioned twelve deaths so far, while three more people were still in critical condition.

A teenager. He kept saying he was hungry, so damn hungry, as all Wendigos are. His father had been killed when he was younger, his mother had been human. There was no way of knowing if he’d even have been born Wendigo if it weren’t for whatever they’d done wrong in Zurich.

Sixteen years old. No child should die that young.

But worse than that, it made cops more ready to pull the trigger in other cases. Set them up to kill, instead of arrest. Scott couldn’t even blame them, they were only doing what they could to take down what they saw as a threat. It’s not like a werewolf, a Wendigo, or a kitsune was ever fully unarmed.

The people in that diner had had families, loved ones. There had been children in the place, little kids. Scott’s hands were shaking just thinking about it.

They’d gone into Zurich trying to save lives, but how many more had died because they’d done so?

“Want one?”

He looked up, stunned.

He hadn’t even heard the cop coming up to him. The desk sergeant. Scott stared up and offered a grateful smile as he accepted the cup of coffee that the man offered him. It tasted horrendous, but it was warm. He hadn’t realized how much he’d needed it till the comforting liquid slid down his throat.

“Go home, kid. You’ve done everything even someone like you could possibly do.” The man sounded gruff, but his heartbeat was even, and his scent smelled of comfort.

“I don’t….” Scott wanted to refuse, he didn’t want to rest, didn’t want to stop, but he yawned before he could finish the sentence.

“Look, I appreciate the help. And so does everyone else in the building who isn’t currently scared out of their wits. But you can’t help us if you burn yourself out. Go home, get some rest. We’ve got your number. We’ll call when we need you.”

 

_“Go to sleep Scott, the others will call us when they hear from Monroe,” Stiles had said, sitting down on a chair next to the bed._

_“What about you?”_

_“I’ll go down right after you, no worries on that. I just need to call my Dad first.”_

_“Stiles?”_

_“What?”_

_“Do you think we’re making it worse? Do you think we should just let someone else handle this, someone who knows what they’re doing?”_

_“Who?”_

_Scott shrugged as he pulled the plaid over him._

_“There’s no one else Scott. It’s just us. Guess we should be used to that by now.”_

_“I’m glad you’re here.”_

_“So am I, buddy. So am I.”_

 

Scott closed his eyes, and almost nodded off. He knew the man was right. Even the hunter who’d talked to him had left hours ago. But it was hard to admit that he’d done everything he could do at the moment. The sergeant’s hand was on his shoulder, holding him up.

For a moment Scott saw Sheriff Stilinski, before his mind flashed back to reality.

“Do you have someone to pick you up?” The man sounded almost fatherly, without the slightest hint of deception in his heartbeat.

Scott shrugged, unsure, he didn’t feel whole. The sergeant didn’t wait for an answer and left. When he came back with another cop, Scott hadn’t even realized how long he’d been gone. The clock had passed over half an hour.

The guy in the news van was, if possible, even closer to sleep that Scott himself was. Scott was just happy that the man wasn’t paying enough attention to realize who Scott was, that he could just leave without it catching even more attention than he had already. 

The cop seemed unsure, quiet, he kept throwing looks at Scott in the rear view mirror. Scott didn’t bother to look back at him, almost nodding off as he sank in the quiet hum of the car. He just let his head fall against the headrest, checking his phone for any last messages he might have missed. There were too many to count. He wanted to respond, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so.

He barely managed to thank the officer for the ride, before stumbling up to the dorm. There were a few people still outside their rooms, most of them stood stunned as they saw him coming. Conversations stalled and broke off as he came closer. 

 

_Eyes were on him, always on him. Whether it was in the US, Europe, Asia, no matter where he went, people seemed to find out who he was fast enough. Wolves huffed up when they saw him coming. What did a teenager like him know about anything?_

_But when the bullets came, and the crossbow bolts and the explosions, they all looked at him as if he had all the answers. As if he knew what to do where they didn’t?_

_“I’m just as clueless as you are,“ he wanted to tell them. “I’m just a kid, I want someone to tell me what to do, just as much as any of you.”_

_But no one else ever seemed to want to take over._

Scott ignored them and headed up to his room. Only one heartbeat inside, awake. He opened the door.

Steve was on his bed, working on his laptop when Scott came in. Two more books lay open beside him. He was reading some page on werewolves, something from some kind of RPG. There was a large silver necklace around his neck. It would almost be funny if Scott wasn’t so tired.

He didn’t even bother to turn off the light, too tired to care as he sank down on his bed, still fully dressed, barely bothering to kick off his shoes. He was out seconds later.

He woke up to the touch of fingers on his face. He grabbed the offending hand, claws out, sinking into flesh. 

“I’m … I’m sorry, I just…” He let go when he realized it was Steve. “I just wanted to see where the fangs go.” Steve stared at him, grasping for his hand, it was bleeding.

Scott sat up, yawning deeply, pulling in his claws. 

“They don’t go anywhere Steve, they just shift back to normal teeth.” He managed to mumble out the words, before pushing his legs out of the bed.

He felt around the floor for his shoes, unable to find them. He wasn’t in the mood to search for them, feeling his toe claws tap the floor even through the socks before he pulled them in. 

“But…”

“Steve, not now.” He threw his dirty shirt in the laundry bag. It was starting to smell. When would he have time to get it cleaned? He wasn’t sure. He stared into the mirror at the door. He had to take control of himself, push it all back. 

“But I need to know.”

“You need to know?!” Scott splashed some water in his face from a bottle he kept in his closet. “Do you realize how close you just came to dying?” Scott could see Steve freeze in the mirror. “I’m an Alpha werewolf, Steve. If I had any less control, I could have slashed your throat before I was even fully awake. Worse, I could have bitten you. And then you’d either be stuck with changing into something you don’t have the first bit of a clue about, or you’d die a slow and painful death in the case your body doesn’t accept the change. So for your own sake, just leave me alone.”

Steve stood frozen, his hand up just the littlest bit, his glasses half crooked on his face. His brown eyes were wide, a brown only a shade lighter than his skin. Scott ignored the kid, grabbed his toiletry bag and a towel, and slammed the door shut behind him as he headed into the hallway.

Several others were already up. Getting ready for early classes, some even heading to some kinds of sport practice. Scott noticed Chad, his next door neighbor. The UCD football linebacker’s scent was off, as if he was about ready to come to Scott and ask him something, but stopped himself from doing so.

Chad’s roommate gasped for air when he recognized Scott. Scott had to hold back a growl at the panicked stench filling up the air in the closed off hallway, wondering what had happened to the ventilation.

He moved on to the bathrooms, pushed off his pants and socks before he got into the shower stall. He stood there, still, letting the water wash over him. Breathing in and out, calming himself, trying desperately not to smell the stench of the cow pastures coming from the other side of campus. He was feeling slightly better as he got out of the shower, wrapping his towel around his waist. Two kids were standing in the door, staring at him. 

“No, I don’t have a tail.” He said, rolling his eyes as he did so. ‘Not yet at least’. He didn’t add that last part. It didn’t stop them from staring. He had to get through another gauntlet to get back to his room.

Nobody seemed to want to get close, but everyone’s eyes seemed to be stuck on him, as if he’d turned into a lab specimen. 

When he got back to his own room and opened the door, Steve was still standing in the same place he’d been before, his hand still raised in the exact same manner.

“But how does it work?” Scott groaned as he stuffed his worn clothes into the hamper. “It just makes no sense.”

“Steve.”

“It just doesn’t, the whole conservation of mass and energy, something can’t come out of nothing. It makes no scientific sense.”

“Does it have to?”

“Yes!”

Scott looked at the guy, stunned at the kid’s outburst, and had to fight back a chuckle, the other boy seemed about ready to explode.

“Nobody knows, Steve. It’s just… supernatural stuff. Magic.”

“But magic is just science we haven’t figured out yet.”

Scott couldn’t help remembering the Dread Doctors. He wondered if the last two besides Marcel had started out like this. Just wanting to explore, to figure things out? Until they no longer cared about the lives of those whom they experimented on to bring out the magic they once wanted to explain. 

He searched his closet for a clean set of clothes. It took him a bit before he found some jeans and a shirt that didn’t offend his nose. He was starting to get a headache as he tried to ignore Steve’s endless questions. It didn’t work.

“Aren’t you even remotely curious? You’re studying to be a vet, don’t you want to at least understand your body?”

“Steve.”

“I’m serious. You’re living a scientific breakthrough, and you don’t even ask questions about it.” 

“A scientific breakthrough, really?” Scott had to take a few deep breaths just to keep his claws from coming out, to keep his eyes from shining their deep alpha red. From the way Steve was looking at him with wide open eyes, he wasn’t entirely successful. “Do you know what I’m living, Steve? My body changed on me in a way, I can’t even begin to explain. Do you know what it’s like to hear the whispers of people all around me in the building, and to have to actually work at blocking them out? To hear them call me a freak, a monster, something out of their nightmares? That full moon calendar I have up against the wall isn’t just for fun, it’s something my life depends on!”

Scott hadn’t even realized how close he’d gotten to the guy until he stood close enough to touch. He let the fangs and claws come out, showing them to Steve.

Steve, though, didn’t act scared, more like fascinated. Scott could hear his heartbeat, sounding almost eager, like he wanted to reach out, even if he didn’t do so. His scent, everything about him screamed like he was barely holding back excitement.

Scott didn’t know what he’d do if Steve actually found the courage to reach out to him, so he took a step back before the guy could.

“You talked about wishing you could have spent a gap year like I did, thinking I’d spent it having fun. Do you know how I really spent my gap year, Steve? I spent it sleeping in a different motel, every night, not knowing where in the country, where in the world I’d be going next. I spent it keeping Hunters from murdering innocent people, even children, for the crime of existing. I spent it being scared that I’d be too late to save lives, scared that all I’d find would be bodies.” 

All the blood, all the faces, all the dead eyes staring up at him, judging him for not getting there in time to save them. “You want me to look for answers? I’m too busy solving the problems that all the questions keep causing.”

“Scott, I…”

Scott forced himself to calm down, shivering as he did so. He knew that it was the stress, everything just building up since yesterday morning. He sat down on his bed, taking deep breaths, closing his eyes, his fingers stretching and pulling in as he did so.

“Look, I’m sorry, I just…”

Steve sat down on his own bed. Scott could smell his scent waving across the room. It smelled… innocent, excitement fighting with fear and … worry.

“I’m coming on too strong, aren’t I?”

Scott wanted to glare at the other boy, but he just smelled so...

“I just… this is all just… It’s like the world fell down, and there’s all these things I never thought possible that are suddenly real, and everything I thought we’d figured out about reality, just isn’t true anymore.”

Scott understood. But that didn’t make it better. 

“People really want to kill you over this? Why?”

Seriously? Wasn’t it obvious?

“There’s a whole other species sharing the planet with us! Don’t they get how amazing that is?” Scott stared up at him. “We’re not alone in the universe, and we don’t even have to go to another planet to find you guys.”

“You’re weird.” Scott said. Something about the ache in his heart lightened for just a moment, and he couldn’t help cling to it, help cling to this boy. He wasn’t quite right, wasn’t quite what he needed, but he was something, like a band aid, just enough to keep him going. 

“So people keep telling me. But as they say, weird is good. Right?”

Scott chuckled, shook his head and pulled a shirt on over his head.

“I can give you the number of a few friends of mine. They’re better at the whole science aspect of this stuff.”

“You can?” The boy sounded so hopeful, that Scott couldn’t help but promise that he would.

He just hoped that Lydia or Mason wouldn’t kill him over it. Or worse, send his Mom after him.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

 

The next two weeks were hell. It felt like going through the apocalypse one day at a time, while the rest of the world kept on ticking. 

He sat down with parents who’d just seen their beloved children turn into something inhuman; with those who just wanted answers so they could help them, and those who were horrified. He sat with children who were afraid that their Mom or Dad had turned into a monster that could come after them at any moment.

So many of the new wolves were even more scared of themselves than they were of anything else. Almost every other day there was yet another feral, another Omega losing control and finding themselves turned into something most alien to themselves. 

And when he wasn’t doing any of that, he spent more time on the phone than he’d ever had before in his life.

Organizing, cajoling, convincing, being the voice begging others to step up to the plate. Thank God that Derek had gotten him an unlimited account last year, or the overcharges would be killing him. 

Most days he left early in the morning, getting a quick bite to eat at the CoHo before he left, and didn’t come home till evening. Avoiding the local press as he moved. The more he got involved, the more they wanted to talk to him, and the more he wanted to avoid them.

After the third day, most of the cops had gotten so used to seeing him at the station, that they welcomed him by name. By the fifth, they had his favorite donuts waiting for him as soon as he arrived. After the second week, well…

Finding out that one of them had just gone feral and having Scott help him through it, had pulled down the last walls that had remained between them. W. Layton, or William might just be campus police, but he was still a cop. So unsure what to do now. Wondering how he could even remain a cop after … everything. Scott had had Parrish call him. He hoped it helped.

Steve had taken his clothes to the washers for him. Scott hadn’t even realized the boy had done so, until after he left a bag of Scott’s clean clothes on his bed. It was almost three weeks after the full moon. He’d thought about going back to class that day, but he hadn’t even managed to get his feet in his shoes before his phone started ringing again.

Marie, an alpha he’d met in New Orleans, was calling him in a panic. She’d just gone from a pack of four to twenty, and felt miserable because she couldn’t handle the strain of taking in any more. Scott spent an hour telling her it was admirable enough that she’d taken in as many as she had. He knew well enough how hard it had been after his pack had taken in over half a dozen refugees after the war with Monroe. He still wasn’t sure if she quite believed him when they ended the call. 

It wasn’t easy saying no to that bond, especially when the ones begging for it, didn’t even know they did so. When Laurie knocked on the door, strung out like a bean, he couldn't help but see the desperate look on her face when she came begging him for his help, the notion of refusing her had long since passed him by.

The girl just looked so alone, dressed in a shirt and pants two sizes too large. They smelled like she'd been wearing them for days. He knew she’d been back to school for the past week, but he’d been so busy helping the police that he hadn’t had a chance to check up on her yet.

“My Mom, she… she showed up last night." She seemed about ready to sink into the floor, as if she expected him to throw her out as well. "The way she looked at me. Like I was a freak.” Scott couldn’t help but think of his own mother’s eyes, when she’d first found out. 

“It was a shock.” It was all he could say.

“Right, a shock, that’s why she told me not to come home and wanted me to stay here. She said people back home needed time, but…What if she hates me now?”

He wanted to offer denials, to tell her that her mother would always love her. But then he remembered how Alec’s mother had worked with the hunters to find him. How the boy’s own mother had helped the hunters take down Alec’s pack, begging them to kill the monster that bore her son’s face. As if her own little boy had long since died.

Comfort was one thing, but how could he be sure that what he was offering, wasn’t false hope?

“When I told her I was gay, she hugged me. But now… she won’t even touch me.” Like a door closing in front of her, it was too familiar a feeling.

“I can’t offer promises.” He said, not even bothering with useless platitudes. This is new to all of us.” Newer to the rest of the world than it was to him. He remembered those months in Beacon Hills during the Anuk-Ite’s rampage, when fear had reigned and people had caught a glimpse of reality.

They’d been repulsed then as well.

Laurie stood about ready to cry. He went up to her, and took her hand, giving her every chance to back out if she wanted to. But he knew enough about new wolves, to know just how desperate they could be for touch. It only made the rejection by Laurie’s mother even worse.

“But that doesn’t mean you have to give up hope.” Laurie brushed her hand over her eye, wiping away a falling tear. “If she can’t bring herself to accept you, you just have to remember you aren’t alone. You have your friends, and if you want it, you have me and…” he hesitated one last second, “my pack?”

“Pack?” She looked so little, standing there, shorter even than Liam, but at least Liam had had muscles going for him.

“You know that my eyes are a different color from yours?”

“Duh.”

“There’s a reason for that.” Scott showed her his eyes. “Wolves with red eyes, it means that I’m not just a Beta, or an Omega like you. It means I’m an alpha”

“A what?” He wasn’t sure if she was interested, or offended at him calling her an Omega. He wondered if she’d be more or less offended if she knew what the term meant.

“There are three kinds of wolves. Alpha, Beta and Omega are the terms we use for it. Omegas are wolves without a pack, lone wolves. Betas are wolves who are part of a pack, they gain strength from the pack, they are stronger, faster, they heal better.

“And Alphas?” She hesitated on the word.

“Alphas run the pack. We are… leaders, protectors. We are the most powerful of wolves. Mentally as well as physically. Wolves thrive in packs, we are stronger in a pack, than we are alone.”

Laurie stared up at him in hope. “What, like that line from Game of thrones?”

“What line?” Scott tried to remember, Stiles had been trying to get him to watch the show, but all the violence had just turned him off of it.

“You know, when winter comes, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”

“They say a line like that?” It sounded like something… like something a wolf would say. 

“Yes.” He stood stunned, wondering if there were people out there, famous people, hiding what they were while living a public life, and how could you ask.

“Cool.” Maybe he should watch that series. Someday, after he let Stiles get him to watch those damn Star Wars movies he kept going on about. Scott took a sniff of his over shirt, checking if it could pass for another day. “Who knew that some TV show could get that deep?”

She rolled her eyes at him, a soft smile on her face. It was nice to see it break through. Nice to let her know that being a wolf hadn’t ended her life. She was still waiting, hesitant, but waiting. 

“And I could be part of that?” She finally asked. Something slotted in place between them.

“If you want to.” He offered her his hand and a place to sit. She took it. “But you need to know what a pack is first, so you know just what you’re signing up for.” He knew he was asking, giving her a chance to back out.

She nodded, but he didn’t think she was going to wait for the explanation, she was already primed to say yes. Just like his heart already considered her Pack.

It didn’t stop him from giving her the full explanation. How being part of his pack would give Scott a certain degree of control over her. How losing a pack member would devastate her, as it had him when Allison died. How closely connected they’d be, and all the dangers that came with being one of them. The enemies they had, the struggles they'd fought.

He told her about the full moon, and how they could spend it together, instead of having to deal with it on her own.

That being a beta would make her stronger, faster, improve her healing, but it would make her more sensitive as well, more aligned to feeling along with the Pack. She didn’t care, all she cared about was getting some kind of solid ground away from the quicksand she was drowning in.

Scott could practically feel her hands reaching out to him as he offered her the pack bond. Pulling her in for a hug, letting her know she was accepted, it was like the muscles in her body just relaxed, like her scents just eased down and went from frightened to settled.

He wished he could offer the same to more than just her. 

His ringtone went off, and he pulled away from her to pick it up. He didn’t recognize the number, but that was nothing new.

“McCall?”

“Yes?” 

“This is Sergeant York from the Davis PD.” Scott wondered if the man would ever stop introducing himself like that. Two weeks and still the man’s words sounded as formal as ever, and yet his tone of voice sounded almost fond. The guy had to be in a hurry that he’d used his private phone, instead of the desk phone.

“Is something wrong?” The last call had been about a little girl that had torn her father to shreds when he came into her room, once too often in the middle of the night. The girl was in the trauma room, the father, barely clinging on to life. If he survived, he’d be charged and put to trial.

It had been one of the hardest cases, telling a twelve year old girl that the anger she felt, that righteous anger that felt like a flame and kept her going, could get others killed. No one had wanted her punished, it had clearly been self-defense. And yet she’d be the one carrying those scars for the rest of her life. Scott was still scared that she’d lose control again. Derek had offered to talk to her, Scott knew Derek would be the one most suited to help her, but he hadn't dared ask. Derek insisted. 

“Sorry to bother you kid, but it seems we’re going to need your help again.”

And that meant another day of no classes. How much longer could he even keep this up? How much longer did it even matter?

“There’s something happening on the quad. The campus police said something about a guy going feral, but they weren’t too clear about what was going on. All I know is that that damn place is crowded at the best of times, and there’s no way we can get it evacuated in time.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.” He put down the phone before the sergeant could say anything else. 

“Laurie I need to go.” 

“I can help.”

Scott wanted to tell her no. She was barely in control of herself. But he knew she wouldn’t care for that, he hadn’t when he’d been new at this. So he just nodded at her to follow, before running up to the window, opening it and jumping through it, landing on all fours.

It had taken him a while to get used to it, so he understood if Laurie would find it difficult, but running on all fours for some reason always seemed to be faster than running as a human. 

At first sight it seemed uncomfortable, he was almost happy that his clothes hid the change in his joints and bone structure to match with a quadruped run. He didn’t bother to wait to see if Laurie was following, she’d have heard enough to know where he was going. 

He arrived at the quad and summersaulted to get up on two legs, shifting his bones as he did so, looking around to find the one he’d come looking for.

The quad was in full panic mode. The crowd was in a chaos, and it took Scott some time to see what was going on. He was startled to find a coyote had managed to find its way into the garbage bags.

It smelled like a shifter though. 

It backed off when it saw him, recognizing him as the larger predator, and seemed set to run. Scott wondered if the coyote even remembered that he used to be human. It growled at him, focusing entirely on Scott. Scott let himself shift, staring at the coyote with shiny red eyes, feeling his face shift, with that same odd shift that it had had since that first time at the police station. It kind of itched. He tried to ignore it, tried to keep himself from touching his fangs and figuring out why he felt so weird. 

The coyote snarled, ready to make a break for it. Scott roared, gentle this time, letting the coyote hear him, hear the pull, the invite, the message saying ‘come back, it’s safe now’. 

The coyote growled, Scott roared back, more insistent this time. Their eyes met, the coyote’s golden eyes met with Scott’s red ones, and for a moment they stood frozen, communicating without words.

People stared in shock as the coyote started shifting into someone all too familiar. A six foot tall local linebacker who was on the football team. A year ahead of Scott. The guy stared up at him in shock. Scott just took off his coat and offered it to him.  
Chad had never been the brightest bulb in the room. He got into the school more based on his football skills than anything else. Chad at first didn’t seem sure what to do with it, before he quickly wrapped it around his waist, desperately trying to cover up.  
Scott looked around, checking to see if anyone else needed help when Laurie came riding up to the quad on a pink bike covered in stars. Scott rolled his eyes. If she’d ran, instead of going for her bike first, she’d have arrived alongside him. But then again, she was new at this.

She raised her hand, “Scott, watch out.” He turned around and as he did, he barely avoided getting hit by a massive crossbow bolt in the chest…but it just hit his side instead.

The damn thing was almost the size of a spear.

His face scrunched in pain, shifting as his jaw extended, his mouth opening wide, releasing a howl of pain as he went to his knees. He moved his hand, his claws up to his side, wincing as he touched the wood. He could see it sticking out. He roared in pain as he grabbed the bolt, trying to get rid of it, but it was too big.

He could feel his clothes tearing, his pants bursting as he felt himself grow larger, fur growing all over his body, his subconscious unable to deal with this thing inside of him that just didn’t belong. Staring up at the trio of boys holding the crossbow. A couple of frat boys, Scott didn’t really recognize them, they were from another hall, and were in the engineering department. 

The trio that was now staring at him in a mix of fear and hope. Hope the bolt would do the trick, but overruled by fear that he’d come after them next. 

It hurt, hurt so much. 

“Scott, Oh God, Scott, what do I do?” Laurie was running up to him, almost a fearsome sight as she’d shifted in her wolf form.

“It needs to come out.”

“But… but how. You need a paramedic, you…” Scott felt his claws grabbing onto the bolt, tearing at it. “

“Pull, just pull. “ It had gone all the way through, he snapped the front part, keeping it from getting in the way. “Just pull.” He pushed more alpha command in it than he’d intended to. He couldn’t let it stay in, it would keep the wound from healing.  
Laurie stared at him in horror before she did what he told her to. It felt like a relief when the thing came out. He could feel his flesh and organs start fixing themselves, could feel his heart beat a bit easier, and he pushed himself to his knees, staring at the boys in a red haze.

A voice inside his blood told him to just shred and mash, maim and destroy. He took another step closer, lifted his hand, trying to tell them there was no reason to be scared. He could smell one of them stink up his pants. 

That hadn’t been what he was after. It hadn’t been, he just wanted to… talk to them. 

He felt himself shrink down, back to his normal self, staring down at his hands, no longer claws. His vision no longer red. His wound still open, the edges of the wound slowly creeping closed, blood trailing up his skin, ignoring gravity, as if called in by a body that needed it. 

He could feel the flashes of cameras, people having their phone out. A camera crew standing by the side, reporters. They weren’t supposed to be here. His clothes were shredded, the edges just barely holding. 

“It’s alright, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not fine. Those assholes shot you, with … whatever the hell that thing was.”

“I’ll heal.” But God, it hurt, still hurt.

Laurie being there helped, made him feel stronger, and he took another step towards the boys who were just about to try and run. His wolf told him to grab them, to tear them down, make them pay.

They reminded Scott of Nolan, boys trying to fight their fear and be heroes, but stuck in the role of the enemy.

He could hear police sirens approaching in the distance. 

“Was that really necessary?” he asked, trying to smile at them, breathing in and out, soothing his wolf. He winced as the wound moved, still closing, his shirt clinging damply to his bod, wet of his blood.

“Please.” The boy’s voice sounded almost pathetic. “Please, don’t kill us.” The guy was falling over himself just trying to get away. 

“It’s alright.”

But the guy wasn’t listening. Begging Scott not to kill him. As if he didn’t even seem to remember that he’d been the one to attack Scott in the first place.

Scott shook his head, staring down his shirt. It had been one of Stiles’ once up on a time. A favorite of both of theirs that they’d switched between the two of them several dozen times already. Scott had taken it almost off of Stiles’ back when he left, just to have something that smelled like his best friend. 

He’d have to throw it out now.

When the cops arrived, the kids seemed to almost cry in relief.

They were less relieved when the cops arrested them instead of Scott. 

“But he’s a monster!” One of the fratboys had the guts to say. 

The cop, Ramirez, who’d driven Scott home at least half a dozen times in the past two weeks, just rolled his eyes. Some of the boys’ friends started trying to interfere, asking why the cops were going after the only people willing to fight back against the monsters.

“’He’, unlike these three, was here on our behalf,” Ramirez answered. “This ‘monster’ was only here because he was nice enough to offer his help, so that ‘you’ would be protected. And then those morons shot whatever the hell that thing was at him. A thing that I’m damn sure breaks every weapon law on campus. You’re lucky we’re not arresting your friends for murder, instead of attempted murder.”

“Officer,” Scott interrupted.

“What?” 

“You don’t have to arrest them. I get that they were just scared.”

“This isn’t about you McCall.” Ramirez shrugged. “Well, part of it is of course, since you’re the victim. But they got lucky. If they pulled crap like that – and yes, I got a full view of what they did on my phone on the way here – on anyone else, we’d be dealing with a corpse now. You’re… We’re all damn lucky even something like that can’t kill you.” Scott was surprised at how the guy almost choked up as he said that. “Damn it kid, I thought we’d sent you to your death.”

Scott lowered his head, surprised to hear Ramirez’ concern. 

“You’re here on special request of the Davis Police Department, McCall. That means they attacked someone attached to our station, and we take that damn serious. If you really want, you can go to the judge and speak on their behalf, but right now, they’re going to lock up for attacking a police consultant, illegal weapons possession, and attempted murder.”

The crowd seemed almost as stunned as Scott was. Scott shivered, even in the warmth of the sun. 

“Now somebody get this boy some clothes, before I have to arrest him for indecent exposure,” Ramirez said, a smirk on his face, showing how non serious he was. Scott did try to pull his clothes tighter, and one of the other cops gave him a coat. He wished the sheriff was here. Sheriff Stilinski would have been able to tell him what to do, what the right thing was.

He missed that. 

Scott was just happy that Chad had still been wearing his coat when those boys attacked. It meant that at least he wouldn’t have to use Chris’ money to buy a new one.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

 

If there was one thing Scott didn’t understand, it was how people here were fussing about him. Sure, people back home had cared if he was hurt, but usually all he had to do was say he was fine, and they’d focus on something else. Even Mom, for all that she cared, just didn’t have the time to keep asking him how he felt. She knew what he could heal from. Here, though….

Laurie kept acting as if he was about to drop dead, and it took a lot of his effort to get her to calm down. But that was to be expected. She’d only just gained an alpha, her body and mind were adjusting to his presence in her mind and instincts, so even the idea of losing that newfound connection was a horror to the new beta’s instincts.

It was the others that really confounded him.

The paramedics who’d arrived on the scene, insisted on bandaging his side, and tried to at least give him a blanket against shock. The owner of the beverage stand who brought him a soda, and refused to take his money when he wanted to pay for it. But most of all, there were the police officers. 

Officers Jones and Speckley kept checking on him to make sure he was really fine. Ramirez had tried to make him go to the hospital, to take the ambulance that was offered. The man was sure that the university would pay for it. Scott had refused no matter what. 

He’d told them he’d heal. That he was a werewolf, and the wound was already closing. But even after all they’d seen in the past two weeks, they still couldn’t get their mind around it.

In the end, Scott had just told them he couldn’t risk the medical bills. He’d gotten one of the cheapest healthcare plans available, refusing to let his Mom or Chris pay for anything more. After all, anything he had that couldn’t be taken care of by some rest, or Doctor Deaton, would probably kill him. So why waste their money?

And he was fine, it just ached a bit, but that would be gone soon enough. He had his pack, most of them weren’t here in the flesh, but he had them. He’d heal. He would.  
It was just taking some time.

Scott wanted to… he wasn’t sure what he wanted to. He just knew he had to distract himself. Had to keep his mind in the present so he didn’t think of…

 

_The children’s eyes looked at him in fear. Their little hands tied with wolfsbane drenched ropes. A little girl’s voice: “It hurts. It hurts so much.” Wires attached to their chest. Hanging loose for now._

_“Let them go.”_

_But Monroe stood there with a grin on her face, pressing the button, letting electricity course into them. The children screamed. Screaming, piercing in his ears._

 

“I’m sorry son. But this is office policy. I can’t let you help us, not with you injured like this.”

“But it’s already healing.” 

“Is it? Is it really?”  
Scott stared down, his hands clawing at his side, down the leftovers of his torn up pants. Of the monster he’d become as the spear had hit him. A monster like Peter. 

 

_“I know you want to help them, Scott. But can’t you see it? She’s using those children as bait. They’re not the ones she wants. She’s after their parents, after their alphas, after you.” Chris placed his hand on Scott’s shoulder. Trying to sound fatherly. Succeeding at it to a degree that Scott’s own father hadn’t managed in years._

_“She could kill them. It won’t matter to her that they’re only children.”_

_“She could. But if you go, she’ll kill you. I’ve already lost Allison, don’t make me…”_

_“I have to. I can’t not do this.”_

_Chris looked forlorn._

_“I’m an alpha. It’s my responsibility. But I can’t do it on my own.”_

_Stiles was already standing next to him, as were Isaac and Lydia. Malia was glaring at the other Alphas, the ones still bickering instead of working with them.  
Chris stared at them all._

_Then the Hunter grabbed his guns._

_“She’d be proud of you,” he said._

_Scott didn’t have to ask who he was talking about._

 

“You’re a good kid McCall.” The sergeant stood firm. “And you’ve helped us more, than anyone could expect of you. “

“But…”

“But I don’t want to see you back at the station for at least a week.” 

Scott glared at him, but it didn’t work. 

“If I see your furry butt anywhere near one of my cases for the next week, you can spend the rest of your healing in a cell.” It was a false threat, filled with concern. Scott shivered, seeing the Sheriff’s face over the sergeant’s.  
Chris’ voice in his ears.

 

_“No, Scott, no!” Hearing the man’s composure break, even if only for a second, right before he turned his weapons on Monroe’s hunters. Compartmentalizing, being the hunter he’d been raised to be.  
But that crack in the shell..._

_Scott was dying, but he knew he couldn’t let himself go._

 

“How the hell are you still standing?” the paramedic asked. Her eyes had gone wide as she’d seen the wound start knitting together. Bleeding and knitting, bleeding and closing, and Scott tried to focus, forced it to heal. It only seemed to make things worse. 

He sat down on the back of the ambulance, letting her cover up the remnant of the wound, watching the blood drench the cotton. 

“Anyone else would be dead.”

And he remembered the white room, the roots of the Nemetons tying together all across the world. 

“Anyone else would have stayed dead.”

He knew. But he hadn’t, and here they were. 

Here he was. 

Half a soul.

It wasn’t until after she’d added a few more bandages on the wound that she finally agreed that they couldn’t force him to go to the hospital. They wouldn’t let him walk back to his dorm, and drove him back. It took longer to drive, than it would have to go on feet. He was just glad he was able to avoid a hospital trip.

He’d seen some of a scientist on television talking about all the potential scientific discoveries that could be made by exploring how lycanthropy worked. He had no intention of letting himself be turned into a lab rat. The very thought of it made Scott hesitant to tell them that his side was still hurting, that the wound should have already been gone by now.

He figured that it was probably nothing. Just phantom pain, and if it wasn’t, it would heal, eventually.

It always did.

“Rest.” Ramirez told him. It almost looked as if the man would have tucked him under the sheets if Scott had let him. As it was, he barely left until after Scott grabbed some shorts to replace his pants. “We need you, kid.”

Scott shivered, not relaxing until after they finally let him be.

 

_“Don’t go, Scott. I need you. We need you!” Stiles screamed, begging Scott to stay as he slipped into the white room. As his blood flowed under him onto the Nemeton. “Please, Scott, please…”  
It was the last thing Scott saw before he fell into the roots._

 

The forced vacation was the only positive side out of the whole deal, even if he couldn’t manage to stay in his room. Couldn’t manage the dark.

He’d call it silence, but really, it wasn’t, not when he kept hearing the voices of all the kids surrounding him. Their arguments, their discussions, hearing his name spoken over and over. It was almost easier to head back do the lunchroom, where he could try and force them out of his head and sit down for an actual meal.

No one called out to him.

He forced himself to be happy for that. It was better than stuffing his face in between jobs. Better than the donuts at the police station.

Peace and quiet, is what they said he needed. But what quiet? His phone kept ringing, the sergeant couldn’t stop that. The world didn’t stop spinning, just because he got hurt. But at least he could stay put. Even if the lunch lady behind the counter couldn’t stop shaking and had to be replaced by one of her colleagues when he tried to order the dish of the day. 

He stared up seeing the woman behind her. Maria.

Maria who was trying to keep her head down, focus on her work. She’d been one of the wolves he’d helped in the past two weeks. He wanted to go up to her, and ask her how she was doing. If things were better with her son? If he was still having nightmares about his mama’s glowing eyes? But he wasn’t stupid enough to out her like that. So instead he let her keep filling plate after plate, quietly. 

“It’s… he’s…” he could hear the first woman babble as the head of the kitchen tried to calm her down. The way she reacted, it almost sounded as if he’d been ready to tear her throat out, while all he’d done was ask for food. Maria softly rolled her eyes at her co-worker’s behavior as she wordlessly threw down an extra dessert on his plate, before he moved on to get some coffee

The large woman at the coffee counter, pushed her hand over her hairnet as she smiled at him before giving him a cup with extra foam. 

“Here you go, sweetie”.” 

Scott winced as he moved, and she seemed to look concerned, but he shrugged it off. Moving towards a single table.

While he ate, he couldn’t ignore how all the tables around him remained suspiciously empty, and people kept staring at him.

Someone was barking somewhere behind him. He ignored them.

It was the first time since weeks that Scott managed to get enough of a break to actually sit down and relax for more than five minutes. Scott was going insane before the day was even over. All he could do was look at his phone, keep track of what was going on, and worry about all the people he wasn’t helping. 

It was even worse now that there was an actual immediate threat to worry about. 

His food was getting cold as he kept having to take phone call after phone call. After the fifth or so during the same meal, he was about ready to throw his phone at the wall. He barely stopped himself from doing so, when he realized the next call came from Stiles.

“Scott, just get some sleep,” Stiles had said on the other side of the phone before Scott could even ask him a single question. “You’ve done more than enough.” Then as if he could predict Scott’s protests: “You’ve already done more than anyone expects. It’s not like you’re the only alpha in the country.” 

“It’s not even six.”

“You were impaled! Those bastards shot you with a fucking spear. I don’t care how quick you heal. Go back to bed, rest, heal. Give your body a chance to take care of you. Let the rest of us worry about the world for a change.”

“Have you been talking to my Mom again?” Scott asked.

Stiles chuckled a dry weariness in his tone. “You think I wouldn’t worry on my own?”

There was no need for an answer to that one, of course Stiles would, he just wasn’t usually this… forthcoming about it. 

“Yes, your mom called.”

He knew it.

“She said she’s been trying to get through to you all day, and that your phone’s been busy every single time.”

Scott took a breath. God, he wanted to slam his head in a table, or at least get a separate number for his friends to reach him. But he knew he wouldn’t.

“I’ll call her?”

“Damn right you will,” Stiles answered, “or you know she’ll show up at your doorstep if you don’t.”

He knew Stiles was right, but that didn’t help make things better. It just made him even more nervous.

It was silly, arrogant to think the world couldn’t do without him for a few days; he knew that. It’s just that that feeling of dread he’d had since that first day still hadn’t gone down. And he couldn’t bring himself to ignore it.

But he did as Stiles told him to, he went back to his room, he called his Mom, and after about half an hour or trying to convince her he was just fine, he tried to sleep, tried to get out of his head, even if just for a bit.

It didn’t work.

In the end he was checking his phone over and over, just trying to find every bit of information he could, until he finally fell asleep with his phone still playing a video on the pillow next to him.  
The roots were waiting for him.

 

******

 

He woke up the next morning, almost scared he’d overslept. He hadn’t. It was barely six in the morning.

Steve threw him a fresh pair of pants and a shirt. Scott gladly accepted them. He stared at the ruined clothes in the trash, before turning his eyes to his hand. For a moment he imagined his arm getting big and hairy, his fingers becoming claws. He blinked, and his hand was normal, perfectly human. 

He took a deep breath and checked his books, looking at the notes Steve had gotten for him.

Two weeks of missed classes. Part of him wondered if he should just give up on the semester. But he knew he couldn’t. Instead he sat down and read through every page he’d missed. 

He didn’t think he’d ever been this happy to go back to class. At least it would serve as a distraction, keep his mind from worrying too much.

He’d promised Derek that he’d keep his phone on him, and to check for texts. But things had finally seemed to start settling down a bit. Either that, or Stiles had sent out some threatening calls to get people to leave him alone for a bit. 

Steve seemed even more excited about Scott finally getting to go back to class than Scott himself. Scott figured that the boy was just hoping to ask him some more questions. Steve’s eyes seemed always so damn hungry for more knowledge, new experiences, new anything.

Scott wasn’t sure if he should be fine with that, or start looking for somewhere to run to. It was kind of funny just how eager the kid was. It felt familiar, too familiar, like regaining a shadow he had lost.

Steve didn’t have the moves down right though, his voice too low, his remarks not nearly cutting enough. Scott’s wolf didn’t care. 

Not that it meant that his classmates were as ready to see Scott return, as he was to get back. Not if the whispers from the people around him were anything to go by. 

“What if he bites?”

“He looked huge, like really huge. Does every part of him grow like that?”

“Maybe those guys had the right idea. They just had crappy aim.”

“Oh fuck off, he’s like a big puppy. Maybe all he needs is a belly rub.”

Scott didn’t think they realized just how good his ears were.

He blushed as two of the guys started talking about what he’d be like in bed. Some of the girls jumped in with commentary. 

They seemed unsure, what to do or say. Worried, scared, excited. Some were wondering about the kind of stuff that made him cringe just thinking about it.

Why did they keep thinking that werewolves were like dogs? 

Scott desperately tried to stop listening, but he kept hearing his name. Some were defending him, others were just gossiping, a few, not many, but still a few kept saying that he shouldn’t be allowed to be here. He didn’t think he’d heard his name said this often since he first arrived in college.

He wished they found something else to talk about, that they could just forget all about him and ignore him, like most of them had done up until Laurie’s first shift.

“Scott.”

Scott startled as he saw the TA come up to him.

Jewel was a known hard ass who took attendance pretty damn seriously. And she definitely didn’t take absences lightly.

Like the one Scott had been having since this whole thing started. He’d missed three of her sessions, and that was something she wouldn’t easily overlook. 

“It seems you had something more important to do than be in class?”

“I know, I had to...” 

He wasn’t sure what to say, what he could say. That he hadn’t meant to miss her class. Or anyone else’s for that matter. That should be obvious.

“You are aware, Scott, that I normally only excuse absences under extreme circumstances. Such as death. Do you think yours was excusable, Scott?” Scott shivered under her glare. Not sure how to respond. He almost took a step back, ready to show his neck and submit. “I don’t mind students doing civil service, Scott, volunteering is part of college life.” Scott stared up, her expression softened as she continued. “But try and keep it outside of school hours. I would hate to have to kick you out of my sessions.”

Jewel was serious.

She was one of the best Bio TA’s they had, and if Scott pissed her off, then it wouldn’t matter what anyone else said, he’d be left stuck in one of the other class sections. And the second section was apparently given by a TA boring enough to make you long for watching paint dry.

“Thank you, thank you, I…” He wanted to grab her hand, shake it, tell her he’d do better, even if he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it. But oh so desperate to try.

“Yes, I get it. You’re dealing with life changing, world changing events. Just try and keep it out of the time I spend with you children. Is that understood, Scott? Or is that Alpha McCall? The media weren’t clear on it.”

“No, I… It’s just Scott.” Always just Scott, just a kid. No matter what other people seemed to think. 

“Just tell me one thing. Are there any precautions I should take during tests to keep you or other werewolves from cheating?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, you’re the expert here.” She was tapping the cardboard of the file she was holding

“Uhm,” he tried to think of something to tell her, “Tell people not to whisper the answers? Even from outside of the classroom?”

“What?” She looked at him, questioning.

“I can hear what people are saying here, and if it isn’t too noisy, in the next few classrooms.” She was still staring, some of the kids behind Scott froze as well. The room grew so quiet that even a human could hear a pin drop. “I can hear that Mark is currently giving someone a hard time over his physics essay,” A beat. “In his office.”

Mark Statson, another one of the TA’s, had his office at the other side of the building. “His sink is still dripping.”

“You can hear…”

“I can hear a heartbeat behind a closed door if I have to.” She stared at him in shock and started mumbling something. He was pretty sure he heard her mention something about white noise headphones. He really hoped he was hearing that wrong, those things sucked. Araya had insisted on them during their last… meeting.

It was almost a relief to hear her talk about practical things. That when she mentioned tests, she meant papers, and maybe a hearing test to make sure he wasn’t just having a go with her.

When the session started, having her call out other students who kept whispering about him, actually helped make it easier to stay focused. He just wished she could do something about it outside of class as well. 

Still, it seemed easier after that, as if the other kids in his class seemed to stop expecting him to go feral at any moment. They went back to focusing on their notes instead. Scratches on paper replaced the whispers, and they were almost soothing to Scott’s far too sensitive ears.

The kids who’d been discussing his … prowess earlier seemed to be blushing when they looked at him. Their pheromones smelling of embarrassment. Scott just shrugged it off. They weren’t the first to think of crap like that.

But that didn’t mean he wanted them to pull him in a conversation about it. He had no intention to ever find out what was up with that Bad Dragon website that they’d kept going on and on about.

 

_“I don’t even want to know where your thoughts go, buddy.”_

_“My thoughts? What are you... Oh God, no Stiles, no. What even-!?”_

_Stiles was snickering_

_Scott shook his head as he took another look of Malia as her coyote form ran into the scrubs. Coyote might not be common here, but in the dark most people would take her for a dog. Sometimes Scott wondered what it would be like to be able to do a full shift. To become a wolf for real, and not just halfway through._

_He rarely voiced that thought, knowing it was a pipe dream. His mind was too human for him to ever be capable of it, but sometimes in his dreams, he imagined himself running with her into the night._

 

Steve joined him at his table during dinner, and Scott appreciated it. He hadn’t been sure who to sit with, now that a lot of kids seemed to be either scared of him, fascinated by him, or didn’t seem sure just ‘what’ to make of him.

Someone was barking in the background again, thinking he was being funny, Scott wanted to flip them off, but didn’t. Breathe in, breathe out, keep a hold of his temper, and try not to flinch when the pain hits. It was easier to tell himself to do so, than to actually stick to his own advice.

He felt out of place. Before it had been his past, the things he’d been through that the kids around him hadn’t. The life he’d led that they’d never understood, and the innocence that he coveted them for.  
Now, it was like there was a physical barrier between him and the rest of the world, one built by them that he couldn’t force himself to break through.

Sometimes people would smile when they saw him, hesitate a moment, as if they wanted to come up to him, and then they didn’t. Scott didn’t want to be the scary guy, but he had no idea how to tell them there was nothing to be scared of in the first place.

Steve looked shocked when Laurie came up to the table and sat down without a word, put down her plate and started cutting her food.

Not even half a minute later, Chad joined them. The werecoyote seemed to feel out of sorts but was following Laurie like a little duckling, hoping for instructions. Scott knew that Laurie had promised the guy she’d look out for him, he was glad that she seemed to be good for her word. 

He took a whiff of his food, before sinking in. The meal tasted flat, hard to chew like cardboard. It didn’t matter. At least it was food.

When he got up, the other three followed. Scott hadn’t even realized when Chad had joined the pack, he just knew that the boy had. He wasn’t about to kick him back out.

Maria stared after them from her place behind the counter. She looked almost forlorn, as if she wanted to join them, but couldn’t. He decided to ask Laurie to go talk to her. Help her out, while Chad could go talk to the last werewolf on campus. 

He wasn’t all that shocked to find William joining them the day after. It was his first day back at work after a few days of enforced rest. Scott assumed that rest would have been longer, if it hadn’t been for the emergency situation the town, the world, was dealing with. Dressed in his uniform, seeming almost shy as he sat in front of Scott. Scott held William’s hand, letting the pain of the man’s weariness sink into himself. “It’s ok.” He repeated the lie. 

The young wolves weren’t trained enough yet to recognize it for what it was. 

Maria was behind the counter again. Scott heard her say something about her taking her break, and he was almost shocked when she actually came up to them. Still wearing her work uniform. 

The woman shivered, hesitated a moment, before sitting down with them. A lot bolder than he’d expected her to be. They were both pack before lunch break was even over.

Scott knew it shouldn’t be that easy, that he should have a tighter rein for whom he allowed into his pack. But he couldn’t bring himself to stop it, his heart bleeding too open for him to tell them no.

Maria went back to the counter, the larger set woman patting her on the back, the scared one staring at her in horror. But she was smiling, and no longer hiding.

He got up to the window of the cafeteria and stared outside, looking at the press gathering outside the building. The campus police was already heading up to the reporters. Probably to tell them to leave. William followed after him, staring at his colleagues, hesitant. “They didn’t even call me in,” he whispered.

Scott wondered how he could get through the rest of the day while avoiding the press.

He had one more class today. A few more cars were arriving, but Scott ignored them.

He winced as he felt the pull in his side. He broke a few of his fingers, hoping it would help with the healing. It did, slightly. His side was still hurting, but he could feel the itch of healing set in, somewhat at least.

He was still bleeding. He’d ducked into the toilet earlier to replace his bandages, the ones he’d put on that morning were soaked.

It was hard to focus, to stay sitting up, while his wound kept distracting him. The professor kept eyeing him, asked him to stay after class. 

Professor Kelly stared at him as if he was some weird specimen, brought to his lab for examination. It seemed like he wasn’t sure how to state his questions, what to say, or do. The man was never unsure about anything. It made Scott feel like the world was falling to pieces underneath him.

“Can I have some blood samples from you?” the words seemed almost anti climatic. 

Scott still flinched. 

“With your permission, of course. I just… the chance to research this, to figure out how it all works.”

“I’ll… I’ll think about it.”

Scott fled before the man could ask more questions. 

The pack, their group, met again after class. William joined them twenty minutes later, still hungry. Scott let him comp it on his student ID. Steve came running up with some information Lydia had sent him. He was talking about vagaries of werewolf abilities vs mass energy quotients, or something along those lines.

It was hard to keep track of him once he got going.

Maria was working, doing the dishes. She was mumbling something in Spanish about stupid bigots thinking she’d somehow transmit her ‘illness’ if she was allowed to keep serving food.

“The guys in my frat won’t even talk to me,” Chad said. “I’d almost wish they’d just mocked me over it. This silence. I never dealt well with people going quiet on me.”

Scott didn’t think he’d ever heard Chad talk this much. But then, he hadn’t known the other boy all that well before now. 

“But the worst part of it… The coach has been hounding me about my ‘powers’, he says the NCAA has been on his ass about me.” Scott understood, Liam was having similar problems back in Beacon Hills. “But if I don’t play, I could lose my scholarship.”

“Have you talked to the dean about this?”

“I don’t know, that kind of stuff… I picked English as my major for a reason, you know. School was just never my thing. I was going to play football in college and hoped to go pro, before I actually had to graduate.”

Scott wasn’t sure what to say to that. He’d loved playing lacrosse, and he’d considered getting a lacrosse scholarship. But once Derek had offered to pay for the pack instead, that just never became necessary. 

“We’ve got a game next week, and if the Coach won’t let me play, I have no idea how I can even stay in school after that. How am I even supposed to tell my Mom that? I’m supposed to be the one to make it big. I’m supposed to take care of her and my siblings.”

“I don’t think they can take away your scholarship. Can they?” Laurie asked. Scott flinched, not sure how to answer. He was hardly an expert.

He kept hearing cars arriving outside, murmuring, nails hitting wood. His head was hurting, just too many noises, the blood in his veins, the feeling of his pack. He wanted it all to stand still for a moment so he could catch some air, some….

“I don’t know,” Scott said. “I … wait? Next week?”

“Yeah?”

“The full moon is next week.” They stared at him in baffled confusion.

“So?”

“The full moon, as in the time when you’ll lose control and need to make sure you’re chained up somewhere where you can’t hurt anyone?”

The others stared at him in a joined level of … he couldn’t quite describe it. As if they were waiting for him to start laughing. 

“It’s the full moon, you’re werewolves.” Didn’t they get it? A plate fell in the kitchen.

 

_The moon stood high in the sky when they arrived in Zurich, almost as if it were mocking them and their focus._  
Scott had growled as he saw Monroe standing there, at the edge of the airport. Waiting for them, taunting them, letting them know that she knew they were coming for her. But more importantly, that she didn’t care. That she wasn’t scared of them.  
And there was nothing he could do to go after her, without getting the police after them. 

 

“Scott, it’s just a moon. It’s just a stellar body, it has some effects on gravity, on the tides, other than that. The full moon and werewolves…it’s just a story, right?” Steve was gawking at him as if he didn’t quite know what to believe right now.

“I told you that I keep track of the lunar cycles, that it’s vital.” Steve had been talking to Lydia and Mason for two weeks now. How could he not get it?

 

_The children were screaming, howling in pain. They were bait. There to drag their packs into a trap. And even knowing that, they couldn’t stop going after them. Because they were werewolves, not monsters. Not like her.  
Scott shivered when he heard the explosion, when he felt the wave of power unleashed._

_“It’s the Nemeton.” Stiles had whispered._

_Scott closed his eyes, opening them back up to alpha red._

_“I know.”_

_It was all he could say, there wasn’t a minute left to consider their actions, they were running out of time as it was. And Monroe had no idea what she was unleashing._

 

“I thought that was a joke. Like a werewolf joke.” The younger boy stared at him in utter disbelief. Still so stuck in his scientific mind set, as if he was almost willing all of this to make sense to the world he believed in. So resolute to refuse to accept magic as something beyond his understanding. 

“Steve.” He placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I am a werewolf. I don’t joke about things like that. Not about the moon.” Steve started shaking, babbling, almost incomprehensibly so.

“But, I’m better now.” Laurie was shaking. “And we can shift any time, I didn’t think…”

Scott wanted to grab Laurie in a hug and hold her forever. William looked like he’d been hit by a truck. “I can’t take this.” The man whispered, his heart beating in his chest. As if he could fall into a panic attack any second now.

“We can shift at any time, and you’ll learn control. But this is your first full moon. It will affect you, every single time. It will hit you and increase your instincts. Even Alphas like me aren’t free of its power.”

 

_He’d roared as the spear hit him, he’d roared in all his power, making the Nemeton heed his call. His pack was coming, were already there, no alpha ever walks alone. But his mind was already falling into the white room, and there was nothing he could do to stop it._

 

“Then how do you get through it?” 

“Usually the alpha takes care of those in his pack. We lock up new betas, keep them safe, where they can’t hurt themselves or others, until they’ve learned how to control it enough to be on their own during the full moon. For some it’s a constant struggle for others… It’s easier. Music helps, mantras help, chains help… more.”

Maria broke out crying. William grabbed her closer, letting her cry on his chest. Looking like he wanted to be pissed at Scott, but didn’t see the point.

He cringed. He wasn’t sure if it was at the pain, at the thought of these pups not realizing the danger, or at being so unprepared.

He didn’t understand why this was such a big shock. Even he’d known about the full moon before Stiles had to tell him so. He just hadn’t wanted to take it seriously at the time.

His heart sunk realizing it, knowing he’d have to prepare his new Pack-members, get them through this. Be their Alpha. The wolf inside roared in approval, its chain flapping away, mocking him with its uselessness.

“I’ll help you. I promise.” His stomach hurt as he sat up, his spleen protested as he moved. There was something in his throat, he spat it out in his napkin, black. He tried to ignore it.

“You’ll help them.” Steve muttered, not looking at him, staring at his hands instead. “That’s great. But what about everyone else? What about the world? What about the werewolf apocalypse that’s on our way?”

“The what?” Some part of Scott was yelling at him not to be a dumbass, that he knew what Steve was talking about. He just didn’t want to know, hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. Because if he did…

“Scott. You said it yourself, the pack takes care of their own. But what about the around half a million other new werewolves going through their first full moon with little to no warning of what’s coming? What about the ones that are going to be activated during it? Because the number of people going feral is still rising, and the CDC has no idea when or how it is ever going to stop. We’re heading towards an apocalypse, and nobody even seems to realize it.”

 

_”You love to play the part of the hero, don’t you McCall. Love to pretend that you’re nice and safe. That you’re just a human with some powers.” She whispered her words in his ear as she pushed the blade in his chest. “But on the inside, you’re still nothing more than a monster. More dangerous than any of the others, because you’ve made them believe the lie, made them believe that they could ever be good.”_

 

For a moment Scott thought he saw double, Stiles standing there instead of Steve. Joking about the upcoming apocalypse, telling them they were all going to die.

Standing outside in the sun, a crowd forming behind the windows, holding boards saying things like, ‘No wolves on campus!’ and ‘Claws are weapons too.’

Their faces filled with anger, with fear. And for the first time in years, Scott couldn’t help but agree with them, that they were right to be scared.

Stiles scent was in the air. Stiles… standing there in the doorway, waving at him to be let in. Stiles. 

“What have we done?”

Scott fell down.  
 


	6. Chapter 6

6\. 

 

_Stiles had been talking rapidly, all the way during the flight to Zürich. Scott could smell the guy sitting behind them getting more and more annoyed as the flight continued, and after the second hour he paid the steward to bring the guy some headphones. The man didn’t say a word, but he put them on, and it seemed to help, somewhat._

_This was Stiles’ first big trip to Europe. His first trip off of the continent._

_Scott had been all over the world by now, spreading warnings to packs of hyena and lion shifters in Nigeria and Kenia. Travelling days over the frozen tundra in Russia to find a small pack of wolves in Siberia. Travelling all across China to end up fighting hunters from working with gangs in Hong Kong, before they turned people against the shifters amongst them._

_But most of his time had been spent in Europe, helping out packs in Normandy. Working with Isaac in Paris, heading to Wales with Jackson and Ethan. Hunting down a feral Omega that had started going after children in the woods near Dortmund._

_This was almost old hat for him by now, or it should be at least._

_Except this was the first time that Stiles would be there with him. Scott couldn’t stop smiling, rested and at ease for the first time in months, now that Stiles was by his side. He let the man that was more of a brother than a friend motor on and waited for Chris as they passed the ID point._

_He saw Monroe in the distance, standing at the gates of the airport. She wasn’t hiding herself, she'd made sure that they'd see her. Stiles wanted to go after her, but they couldn’t, not in public. Monroe smirked, her hand moving to her side. She was armed, letting him know that she knew people in the airport that had let her smuggle their guns inside with them. When she left, turning her back to him and Stiles, it was another dig at him. She wasn’t scared of them. As if he wanted her to be._

_He’d tried to talk with her, tried to make her see sense, or at least get the people with her to see sense. But they were fanatics. Ready to see him as an abomination that needed to be destroyed. It hurt him to hear them laugh at his offers of peace, to know that they’d die before they’d put down their weapons._

_These people weren’t like the Argents, or even the Callaveras. Or any of the other old hunting families for that matter. He’d passed temporary treaties with over five of them, and all of them agreed on one thing, that Monroe and her people were impossible to deal with._

_Chris was talking to one of the clerks. He was the one with the paperwork to bring weaponry with them. As far as the officials were concerned, Chris was here as the Argent CEO, Scott was his step son, getting a glimpse of the business during his gap year, and Stiles was Scott’s best friend who was taken along to keep Scott entertained, while Chris did some of his more … classified work._

_The local organized crime groups were just as informative as the authorities, and both were just as likely to be infiltrated by Monroe’s people. Leaving Scott and Stiles to join the other members of the pack as a pair of messed up sneakers on the ground._

_Of course, this meant that their hunt for information about Monroe was covered in night after night of going out clubbing. Scott spent more money on drinks in bars, than he’d done in his entire life. Sometimes he wondered what it would feel like to get drunk. But then he saw Stiles suffer from the hangover, and he was happy that he couldn’t._

_Malia, Lydia and Isaac were waiting for them in tonight’s choice of club. Malia and Lydia had flown in a week earlier, to make sure the Pack wouldn’t attract too much attention. Liam was left behind in Beacon Hills. It might be school vacation, but his parents had wanted him to come to Miami with them for a family get away. Theo had promised to keep an eye on Beacon Hills while Liam was gone._

_Scott wanted to trust the chimera, to believe that Theo really had changed. Stiles called him an idiot for doing so. He didn't know about the plans Scott had put in place just in case Theo disappointed him. Scott was an optimist, but he didn't fall for the same trap twice._

_Derek had laid the groundwork with the local packs. Making sure they wouldn’t have a problem with a strange pack hunting in their territory. That and warning them of Monroe. Scott had been hoping that at least one of the Alphas would get involved, take over for once. But as it had been more and more the case, once they heard the ‘True Alpha’ was handling the situation, they just backed out and looked out for their own. As if he somehow had a clue what he was doing when they didn’t._

_It was one of the more tiresome things about dealing with other Alphas, none them seemed to really want to take the initiative on anything that didn’t involve the immediate protection of their pack. So insular that it only made it easier for the hunters to pick them off one by one._

_They still didn’t know how Monroe’s Hunters got the information on the packs that they had. Chis was starting to think they had a mole inside the Argent clan that was slipping them information. And the hunter wanted that leak gone, because how could he trust his network, if they might be slipping him lies to lure the pack into a trap._

_Stiles and him split up, with Stiles joining up with Malia and Lydia. Scott caught the smell of gunpowder almost as soon as he entered the club, the arches of the doors were painted with rowan ashes and there were hints of rowan on the dance floor. It quite literally made him itch. He forced himself to take step after step. But it was too much._

_He was shaking by the time he moved to the side, as far away from the Rowan as possible, realizing he’d caught the bartender’s eye. When the man pushed him a drink, Scott went along with it. He didn’t drink. He couldn’t trust anything offered to him here. He caught the man’s grin as he left behind an empty glass, its contents poured away out of sight._

_He left the glass on the bar and moved towards the door, knowing he’d be followed, pretending to be swaying. Stiles and the others were already following behind them, at just enough of a distance so the hunters wouldn’t spot them right away._

_“Was denkst du, was du hier machst, Wolf?“_

_Scott smiled, his hands went to his pockets. These guys clearly didn’t know even half as much as they thought they did. He didn’t speak though, just stopped. If these guys knew who they were dealing with, they’d have shot him, instead of said something. He was that high on their list of targets. They still didn’t, they were trying to get a rise out of him, maybe even some information. He could hear them mocking him, barking like a dog, their German accents harsh and unfamiliar._

_Scott kept walking, pretending to ignore them. They followed, thinking they were leading him towards a trap. He could smell them from a block away. He didn’t care, letting them circle him._

_„Diese Stadt ist nichts für dich. Deine Art hat keinen Platz unter den Menschen.“_

_“And what kind is that?” Scott turned around, acting as if they’d surprised him. His limited knowledge of German letting him understand just enough to know that they didn’t think his kind belonged here._

_Seeing their righteous pleasure at this chance to take out a wolf. Giving them a chance to back off, even now._

_He hadn’t done anything, wasn’t a threat. But it didn’t matter to them. They were out for wolf blood, and his was just as good as any other’s. He stared down at the ground, pretending to be scared_

_“Monster.” One of them hissed. “Verrückter hund!”_

_“Is that really how you guys treat a poor lost tourist?” he said, giving up the charade, as he raised his head and lit his eyes alpha red._

_The hunters pulled away, scrambled for their guns. They still thought they had a chance. Scott shifted further, claws at ready. He knew he could take their guns before any of them could even think to fire their first bullet. They’d gotten too close to him. Amateurs were always easy that way._

_“Need help, Scott?” Isaac and Malia jumped down from the roof where they’d been following him, Isaac’s eyes a bright blue. They looked so cold now, neither of them had brought up Allison, or why Isaac had left. It was too sore an issue for both of them.  
Lydia and Stiles appeared on the other side._

_“Nein, nein…” The hunters knew they were surrounded, but they were still not giving up without a fight. Scott wasn’t going to give it to them. They couldn’t afford it. Instead he threw the thorns he carried with him in a handkerchief, ready for just this kind of thing, careful not to touch them with his bare skin._

_They fell down within instants; Jackson might still be an ass, but he had his uses, easy access to kanima venom definitely being one of them._

_They stared at him, their eyes, their faces, the only part of themselves that they could still move. Their hears beating a rushed staccato._

_Scott knelt down next to one of them._

_“So tell me, do either of you guys speak English?” They just looked scared. ‘ Français? Russian? Japanese? No?”_

_He pulled out his phone. “I really think I need to learn some more languages.” Stiles clapped him on the back. A comfort. It didn’t help-_

 

 

*****

 

When Scott woke up, he was lying on a warm coated bench at the side of the cafeteria. His new pack, so fresh the bonds were still building, were trying to protect him. Steve was talking to someone that Scott couldn’t quite see. He could hear other people, murmuring, talking. One of Maria’s co-workers was offering her a fresh wet towel, as she tried to look after him, while students around them were talking, talking, incessantly. 

Some worried, others…

It was all just so damn loud. Their smells hitting his nose, all at the same time, making him want to hide inside his head and just pretend they weren’t there. 

 

 

_Seeing Stiles injured, even if it was just a graze, pierced through him. “You shouldn’t be here, this is too dangerous.”_

_“As if you could ever keep me away.”_

_Tying a bandage over the wound, even one that had almost stopped bleeding already. What right did he have to ask Stiles to put himself in danger like this? Stiles was only human, this wasn’t his fight._

_“Stop brooding, Scott, you’re starting to look like Derek, and he pulls it off a lot better than you do.”_

_“I just, I’d never forgive myself if you got hurt.” He tried not to look at the drops of blood that Stiles had already shed. “Really hurt I mean.”_

_“And you think I’d let you do this on your own?”_

_“I’m an Alpha, I never walk alone.”_

_“Stop being an idiot then.” Stiles bumped him against the chest, and everything felt right again. Scott had smiled and looked at Chris. Chris who was bandaging a wound where one of Monroe’s bullets had hit his shoulder. They shared a look. This… this was nothing. Except it was Stiles's blood in the air, and that made it something._

_The other three Alphas were fighting, loudly, and Scott flinched at some of the words that were being thrown around. Even his German was good enough to realize just how much bad blood was spread in between the packs currently forced together._

_“They’re not even being subtle. I’m telling you, they’re up to something”_

_Three children had been taken right as they left school. All three of them were wolves, one from each of the local packs. Their parents were desperate, begging Scott to please find them. The Alphas were furious._

_“This is your fault, if you hadn’t brought that ’woman’ here.”_

_Stiles jumped in between them, wincing as he unsettled his bruises. “If we hadn’t followed her, you wouldn’t even know what was going on. Hell, if we weren’t here, who knows what she might have done to get them? The only reason you’ve still got a chance to save them, is because ‘we’ know who the hell we’re dealing with.”_

_“Stiles.” But Stiles didn’t care. He’d never really cared, Stiles always had this tendency, when he got scared, he got aggressive, hid his fear behind false bravado. In some cases it caused more trouble, in this one, no matter that he was human, and they weren’t, it actually made the Alpha back off._

_“We’ll find them,” Scott promised, not quite sure if he could keep it. One of the alphas, a large black woman, stared up at him. One of the children taken had been hers. “We’ll find them, and bring them home. You have my word.”_

_“I’ll keep you to that,” she said as she turned away, ready to gather her pack. Glaring at the other Alphas in the room. Scott knew they didn’t get along, Monroe had used that to her advantage._

 

He wanted to tell people to stop shouting at one another, to stop arguing, to tell that that it was enough. But why would anyone listen? 

 

 

_It was distracting as they went into the woods, needing to keep an eye on four packs who’d fought one another more in the past century, than they’d faced with any hunter. Old rivalries were a dangerous thing to deal with._

_Scott shivered as him and the others felt the demise of the local Nemeton, hearing it go down, feeling its dying scream. Monroe thought she was weakening them with its destruction, she had no idea how desperate a broken and dying Nemeton could be._

 

Scott couldn’t believe his eyes. Part of him wondered if he was still dreaming. Still too out of it. His senses just messing with him, making him think something was there, that wasn’t. 

“Stiles?”

“Hey there, buddy.” Scott tried to get up, but Stiles pushed him back down. Scott was too weak to fight back, his entire body was hurting. “What the hell have you been doing to yourself, Scott? You should be healing by now.”

The pain had been worse than anything he’d ever imagined. But he’d known he had to hang on, to keep it together, save the children. He couldn’t let the darkness take over, Couldn’t… Stiles was screaming, yelling at him to come back, that he couldn’t leave him. But the white room beckoned… Pierced on the trunk of the tree. Isaac and Lydia were pulling the kids free already, and Scott roared, in pain, in anger. Fading away, into the roots.

“They’re just children.” He said, his face felt off.

“Scotty?”

Stiles looked scared, Steve was standing right behind him. “Scott, stay with us.”

But the past beckoned. 

_Monroe, holding a detonator, explosives drilled in between the roots. She’d already cut the tree, destroying it, the children were screaming, howling in pain as a dark fog slithered out from underneath the roots. Scott didn’t think it would be good._

_“Please, you don’t know what you’re doing!”_

_“Getting rid of the likes of you. Freeing the world from every last monster that roams around in it.”_

_“It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to be enemies.”_

_“This is the only way it can be.” She murmured, holding the spear forged from blessed silver as she forced it into him, ever deeper. “I will be your end, and the end of all your kind.”_

_Scott was bleeding. “Kill me, but let them go. They’re innocent.”_

_“There is no innocence in your kind._

_He remembered the trunk of the tree, the blood sinking down to the roots as it burned, and knowing he had to stop it. The spear had had pierced him down up the trunk of the downed Nemeton, his blood used to destroy it And Monroe, her face an angry mask of rage, thinking she’d won._

_“They’re just children.”_

_She was laughing maniacally as he died. Sacrificed, again, by the alphas who left him to his death, their children their first priority, by Monroe who hates him, and by Scott himself, who couldn’t let others die for him. The threefold sacrifice._

_‘At least the children were getting away’ had been his last thought, as the Nemeton burned, and something underneath started rumbling._

 

 

******

 

 

He roared as he woke up again. Stiles slamming his chest to get him breathing again. “You’re here,” Scott said.

Stiles was hugging him before he could try and get up again.

“Course I’m here, you idiot. You’re my brother.” Scott let Stiles tears fall on him. “What have you been doing to yourself? Can’t I ever let you go off without someone to look out for you?” Scott could barely hear him rambling on. It didn’t matter, his Stiles was here, and something inside his heart slid back into place.

“I should have known you’d be here.” Scott smiled. “We did need someone to figure things out.”

“Figure what out?”

“The werewolf apocalypse.” Scott grinned as he said it, wincing as his insides started knitting together. Stiles looked at him, unsure what to say. Then smiling, then laughing.

Nobody else understood. It didn’t matter. They’d find a way.

 

_Scott woke up in the white room. But where before it had been almost sterile, now the floor was covered in roots. Piles upon piles of roots, breaking through every part of the floor, leaving not an inch untouched._

_He crawled over the roots, feeling them grow larger and larger with every inch he managed to move. He held onto his chest, feeling the injury as if it were an anchor holding him down._

_Something roared ahead of him, he raised his head, his ears shifting to its sound. Another roar followed, and another, until finally he could no longer fight the urge, and his wolf roared back at them._

_The roots underneath him started moving, pulling him along until finally they surrounded him, and he realized they weren’t roots, they were tails, endless tails leading to beings so magnificent, that it made him stare at them in awe._

_The dragons, the trees, the Yggdrasil. He stared up as they mourned their fallen sister, the Nemeton lost under Monroe’s fire._

_They roared once more and he felt their pain, their screams, their kindness as they took him in their embrace. One of them pulled him closer to its chest, and somehow he knew… He knew this dragon, this broken wounded old dragon, its scales splintered and damaged in fire and blood. He had felt its heart once before, he’d been a part of it as it called him its guardian._

_He couldn’t stop himself, all he wanted to do was take their pain, to end their suffering. And he could feel their talons in his mind, and their kindness as they shared their dreams, their poetry singing in the furthest edges of his soul._

_“Let us go young wolf, and we will rage upon the earth. We will tear their world asunder and make them pay for what they did to you, to us.”_

_“They don’t understand,” he whispered. “They are our blood, our people, even if they don’t know. They are ours.”_

_“They are monsters!” The dragons sang, their tails slithering around him, healing his wound and pulling him closer._

_“They are innocents. They are of us, and we are of them.”_

_“Are they now? Are they of our blood, our reckoning?”_

_“They just don’t know,” Scott whispered. “Please, they don’t all deserve your wrath.”_

_The dragon’s talon touched his forehead and he knelt before it, offering his neck, his submission to this being so much more than himself. It looked into his mind, and saw him, all of him._

_“So be it, young wolf.”_

_They were beautiful, so beautiful, as they passed their power on to the world, falling asleep once more, a sleep they might never rise from again._

_And Scott woke in the fires of the Nemeton with a final roar, a last song to the Yggdrasil._

_“We’ve got you, Scott, we’ve got you.” He stared up at Stiles, and he cried._

 

Outside the protestors were raging. The press was working themselves up, unsure if they should be talking up what a good law abiding werewolf Scott was, and how even werewolves had a right to go to school, or joining in with the protestors at the notions of monsters being a threat to the people around them. 

And a week from now, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of werewolves would be going through their first full moon. It should be scaring the shit out of him. 

But when he looked up and saw Stiles there, he knew they could handle it.


End file.
